Rangers offer scant resistance as Middlesbrough respond stylishly to Millwall challenge

A cool reception : Picture by @YTJourno

Championship

QPR (0) 0

Middlesbrough (1) 4 Strelec 20, Browne 68, Hackney 73, Conway pen 89

Middlesbrough eased to an impressive and all-too-easy victory as a disappointing Rangers failed to lay a glove on them.

The north-east visitors enjoyed a comfortable afternoon of possession football with Julien Stephan's men failing to hurry them sufficiently to knock them off their stride.

It is a source of frustration for Hoops fans that during their latest run of results, they have only won two of 11 matches - but they happened to be at high-flying Hull and top of the table Coventry.

But if the hope was that pitting their wits against one of the division's high-flyers would again ignite a fire for them, the dominant promotion-chasing visitors ensured it would not happen.

Millwall, who won at Hull yesterday, would have been hoping the R's might do them a favour by taking points off their rivals for one of the automatic promotion spots, but the gap has now gone back to four points, with both having played 36 with 12 to play.

Boro scored with their first real moment of danger when Hayden Hackney released Riley McGree down the left and his low cross was untidily turned into the net from close range. Morgan Whittaker scuffed a first effort into Rhys Norrington-Davies and his second stab from the rebound found the net via the hip of David Strelec.

Hackney curled a lovely effort inches wide from outside the box as Boro chased a second and they kept control without ever looking anxious about getting that cushioning goal.

It eventually came midway through the second half when Luke Ayling's lob bounced back off the crossbar and Alan Browne pounced to nod in the rebound from no distance.

Joe Walsh saved well from McGree soon after but in the next instant, the game's standout player, Hackney, bent a perfect shot over the keeper from just inside the area. It was the cue for a mass exodus of disenchanted home fans.

Harvey Vale almost grabbed a late consolation with a powerful strike which smacked the inside of a post - keeper Sol Brynn nowhere near it.

As it happens the last word would be Boro's as a luckless Tylon Smith, who had only been on seconds, fouled Tommy Conway in the box and the striker drilled in from the spot.

Hoops: (4-4-2) Walsh - Mbengue (Smith 86), Dunne, Edwards, Morgan (Smyth 71) - Vale, Hayden, Varane (Bennie 80), Saito (Clarke-Salter 80) - Norrington-Davies (Esquerdinha 86), Kone

Boro: (4-1-4-1) Brynn - Brittain, Fry (Malanda 31), Ayling, Targett - Morris - Whittaker (Sarmiento 66), Hackney (Gilbert 83), Browne, McGree (Castledine 83) - Strelec (Conway 66)