Tuesday 23 February 2016 23:28, UK
Aitor Karanka was delighted to see his Middlesbrough side return to winning ways as they ended a five-game winless run with a 3-1 victory over Cardiff on Tuesday evening.
The Teessiders remain within two points of Championship leaders Hull after producing a much-improved display that saw them successfully recover from conceding a first-half goal to Fabio Da Silva.
Cardiff levelled through a Matthew Connolly own goal and secured all three points thanks to second-half goals from Gaston Ramirez and David Nugent.
Karanka said: "Now, we are good again. It was really important for the mentality of the players. Not for me, because I was calm. I know the players and know how good we are, but for them, I think it is important to have won again. Hopefully, now we can start a good run again.
"I was really pleased with them. It was difficult, and we conceded a goal even though it wasn't really a chance for them. After that, though, the players had a really good reaction. We equalised quickly and then we had a lot of chances to score the second goal.
"At half-time, I told them that they had to keep playing in the same way. We were always going to have chances to score because we have a lot of good players on the pitch and in the stands. It was difficult, but it was really important to win again."
Karanka paid tribute to BBC Tees presenter Alastair Brownlee, who died of cancer last week and who was the subject of a series of pre-match tributes.
He said: "He is the kind of person that you are never going to forget. He is always going to be with us, and we have to take his spirit. We have to keep going in this way because the best tribute for him is to play in the Premier League as soon as possible."
Cardiff boss Russell Slade hailed Fabio's 30-yard thunderbolt, but felt his players contributed to their own downfall from that point onwards.
He said: "It was a fantastic goal from Fabio, a wonder-goal, to get us in front. But we almost conspired even before they equalised, to help them, to give them a lift and get back in the game.
"Scott Malone has given the ball away on the halfway line and you can't afford to do that against teams of this calibre away from home.
"That happened for the third goal, we gave it away, you can't do that, you have to make the right decisions and choices.
"The defence really was not at its best, they've set a really good standard, we've had a bit of momentum with us over the last few weeks, they didn't really set the standards they set themselves. They will be disappointed with that."
