Middlesbrough 1-0 West Bromwich Albion: Morgan Rogers punishes old club with winner
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Morgan Rogers came through the West Brom academy before joining Manchester City
Morgan Rogers made it a good week for Carabao Cup semi-finalists Middlesbrough as they moved to within three points of the Championship top six with victory over fellow promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion.
Rogers, who began his career with the Baggies, punished his old club in a dynamic overall display when he converted Lukas Engel's low centre first time at Alex Palmer's near post.
It was no more than Boro deserved as Michael Carrick's side took the game to their fifth-placed opponents from the off, with Palmer forced into saves from Isaiah Jones and Rogers early on.
Kyle Bartley hit the woodwork for the visitors, as there was some ebb and flow before Rogers' measured effort put the Teessiders ahead.
Rogers was denied a second by Baggies goalkeeper Palmer, who touched his shot on to the post, while Sam Greenwood passed up a chance to double the advantage.
But Boro are up to 11th and part of a number of clubs chasing the play-off places.
Carlos Corberan's West Brom failed to match Boro's calibre of chances on the whole, and they have now won just one of their past five games but remain in fifth place.
The mood on Teesside has improved of late as victory last weekend over Swansea ended a run of three straight losses in the second tier, and their convincing win over Port Vale in midweek booked a cup semi-final date with Premier League Chelsea.
Not even the lack of a recognised forward in Emmanuel Latte Lath's absence affected their forward punch, as Rogers stepped up with a crucial strike.
Carrick will also have been heartened by the display of off-season goalkeeper signing Tom Glover, who backed up a midweek clean sheet with another as he deputised for Seny Dieng.
Riley McGree's return was another positive given Boro's injury list which has been fairly lengthy, while Rav van den Berg and Josh Coburn were also brought back into the fold to give the squad a lift.
West Brom have been reliant on Brandon Thomas-Asante for goals in the absence of Daryl Dike but neither he, Okay Yokuslu, Grady Diangana nor subs John Swift and Tom Fellows were able to breach the Boro rearguard.
Dike is nearing a return for Corberan, who at least will see his side in the top five at Christmas despite a tail off in form.
Middlesbrough boss Michael Carrick told BBC Radio Tees:
"It was a good one, for so many different reasons, the performance was there against a really good team, individually, the quality of the players they have, they're so well organised and very tough to play against so it was a real challenge for us.
"Especially after the highs of going through and Chelsea this, Chelsea that, the boys forgot about it in the best possible way and were really good today.
"We're stretched in terms of numbers but I keep saying about the quality we've got, and we believe in it, it was there today, the spirit was there and we should probably have won by more."
West Brom boss Carlos Corberan:
"The result was fair, they were creating more things than we were creating, and they competed the game better than we could compete.
"We tried to make some subs. But the team in the attacking half, we didn't perform at the level we need to win a full game.
"In general in defence we were too conscious of our line of four and we weren't aggressive enough to compete with them in the width.
"We didn't perform well individually, nor collectively. We need to realise that in this period to win football games 100% needs to be the minimum, we need to be ready to face and we need to find our best performance."
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