Middlesbrough 1-2 Blackburn: Two first half goals enough for Rovers to see off Boro

Sam Gallagher (far right) gave Blackburn the lead

A first-half Darragh Lenihan own goal and a goal from Sam Gallagher were enough to give Blackburn Rovers victory over Middlesbrough.

Lenihan put through his own net in the fourth minute before Gallagher doubled the lead after 17 minutes.

Duncan Watmore pulled a goal back for the hosts in first-half stoppage time but Boro were unable to find an equaliser.

The defeat saw managerless Middlesbrough drop into the bottom three.

Rovers took the lead inside the first five minutes in scrappy fashion as Gallagher pressured Lenihan into bundling the ball into his own net from Dominic Hyam's knock-down.

Gallagher tried to claim the goal but soon had one of his own with an excellent finish from the edge of the box.

The striker brought the ball down before firing a shot on the turn that flew into the top right-hand corner of the net.

The struggling hosts halved the deficit courtesy of Watmore's third goal of the season - a tidy finish after collecting Jonny Howson's pass.

Boro came close to drawing level with 15 minutes to go when Lewis Travis headed Marc Bola's cross onto his own post before Thomas Kaminski saved from Chuba Akpom.

Middlesbrough interim manager Leo Percovich told BBC Radio Tees:

"You can't play at home and concede these type of goals. The first one is an own goal where we switched off and we were probably a bit unlucky with the second one.

"The own goal petrifies the team a little as you have the gameplan that you've been working on for four days and within two or three minutes we're one down, it was like a big punch.

"The team showed reaction and belief especially for the last 15 minutes of the first half and then to the end of the game.

"We came back and we tried to fight and play with penetration. We had lots of good balls into the box and forced them to make a lot of saves, especially the one from Chuba [Akpom], that was an unbelievable save."

Blackburn manager Jon Dahl Tomasson told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"First of all it was a brilliant performance to get all three points away at Middlesbrough, with a very young side.

"I thought our first half was excellent, our possession play in the first half was brilliant, almost every time we attacked we created chances.

"I think we should have killed the game but compliments to the keeper for Middlesbrough because we had two extremely big chances. It could have been 4-0 at half-time then the game would have been over.

"We showed the supporters two different Rovers performances, in the first-half a brilliant level with the ball and the second-half brilliant defending with passion so I think the boys have done a really good job."