Middlesbrough 1-0 Birmingham: Boro squeeze past the Blues at the Riverside

Middlesbrough banked all three points against the Birmingham City in a 1-0 victory on Wednesday, at the Riverside Stadium. Boro were looking to get back to winning ways after losing their last match 1-0 to Coventry City. Birmingham, meanwhile, had to settle for a draw 1-1 against Sheffield United. both teams are now on 13 points and sit in 18th and 19th places respectively after 13 matches.

The Boro started the match strongly, when Chuba Akpom gave them the lead, 23 minutes in. They then managed to see out the first half 1-0. With both teams struggling to produce anything meaningful in the second half though, the match ended 1-0.

Substitutions for Boro included Riley McGree, Darragh Lenihan, Marcus Forss, Duncan Watmore and Tommy Smith for Hayden Hackney, Ryan Giles, Chuba Akpom, Rodrigo Muniz and Anfernee Dijksteel, respectively. Birmingham brought on Hannibal Mejbri, George Hall, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Jobe Bellingham and Jordan James for Juninho Bacuna, Krystian Bielik, Troy Deeney, Tahith Chong and Maxime Colin.

There were bookings for Paddy McNair and Anfernee Dijksteel from Boro, and Juninho Bacuna, for Birmingham.

Boro will next travel to Millwall, while Birmingham will face Bristol City at home.