Birmingham City 0-1 Middlesbrough: Riley McGree scores winner as Blues stay in relegation mire

Riley McGree returned to haunt his old loan club Birmingham with a stunning goal as Middlesbrough won 1-0 at St. Andrew's.

Attacking midfielder McGree, 25, put Boro ahead in the 17th minute after a mistake by Alex Pritchard in a game of few clear-cut chances.

The result heaps pressure on City, who have now gone five games without a win and are only out of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone by a point after their match in hand.

City have not won since manager Tony Mowbray - a much-loved former Middlesbrough player and manager - has been away from his daily duties for medical treatment.

Both sets of fans chanted his name but Birmingham looked in need of the 60-year-old's guidance as Boro made it three wins in a row.

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Birmingham had the first chance when Pritchard attempted a 40-yard chip over goalkeeper Seny Dieng but his ambitious effort drifted wide.

Paddy McNair fired over a long-range rising effort for Middlesbrough after Emmanuel Latte Lath was denied from point-blank range by goalkeeper John Ruddy.

But a mistake by Pritchard led to Boro taking a 17th-minute lead.

The former Brentford and Sunderland midfielder's pass was easily cut out by Luke Ayling. He found McGree, who lashed an unstoppable left-foot drive into the top corner of the net from 25 yards.

McGree, who spent 15 months on loan at Blues from October 2020 to the end of 2021, celebrated in understated fashion against his old club.

Things went from bad to worse for City two minutes later when centre-back Marc Roberts went off injured to be replaced by Cody Drameh.

Ayling tried to make it 2-0 after cutting inside and curling goalwards but his attempt was straight at Ruddy.

Pritchard sliced horribly wide on the angle as neither he nor Koji Miyoshi seemed to want to take responsibility to shoot.

If Birmingham's struggles were not summed up by that lack of confidence, they were underlined when no one challenged Latte Lath from Lukas Engel's throw-in and the striker fired just wide.

Matt Clarke sent a bullet header wide from a corner as the visitors continued to look the more dangerous side.

Birmingham replaced the out-of-sorts Miyoshi with Juninho Bacuna at half-time but they continued to look unconvincing.

There was a four-minute stoppage before the hour mark after referee Andy Davies went off injured, with fourth official Jeremy Simpson taking over the whistle.

The lively Latte Lath only just failed to get enough contact on an up-and-under, with the sliced effort flying over.

The managers

Birmingham's Mark Venus:

"He [Tony Mowbray] is making good progress and we can't get him back quickly enough and hopefully he will be back in the future.

"We've missed him immensely and enormously. He's a leader, a motivator and a driver and I think undoubtedly when you have someone like him at the front, you miss him.

"We have not got enough leaders in the club. But we have to work with what we've got and we have to do better and get through this.

"It's a lack of quality that we all have to address."

Middlesbrough's Michael Carrick:

"I don't think you expect that but it was a pure strike from Riley.

"He's capable of those moments and he's had one or two of those 'wow' moments with goals he's scored like that.

"It was a hell of a strike and fitting to win any game. He's capable of that and, like some of the boys, capable of even better.

"I thought there were moments of real quality in the game and that was the standout one. Hopefully he's coming into a real vein of form when we need him.

"Let's see where we go - we've had a good week.

"We were the only game so we knew we could make a bit of a jump, so we made the most of it.

"Just because we won doesn't mean the next game is going to naturally end in a win. We need to start again and prepare for that."

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