Defensive work won us the game - Sir Bobby

Last updated : 19 October 2003 By Martyn Elliott

Sir Bobby

"Shay made outstanding saves, came for crosses and kicked well when he had to.

"He made three reaction saves - the first save of the match from the header and then another save when he came out and made the fella hit him and then the third from another header.

"Titus was again outstanding and cool - very cool sometimes, quite frankly. Once, midway through the first half, he was in between the two centre forwards and he just cushioned a header back to Shay.


"I said to our players before the match that it would give us a massive lift. Both teams needed to win and have a victory, and it's gone to us.

"What we've given is not a pretty performance, but we've given on of those 'over my dead body' performances which from time to time you need to give when you're in our position.


"We needed to do that today - and we did it against what I think is quite a good Middlesbrough team. They won't lose many matches here this season.


"I understand how Steve might be feeling. It was just a narrow win. Our defensive work has won us the game.


"We're on a little run, but there's a long way to go yet. We haven't got to just think we've turned the corner - we'll turn the corner when we keep going."

Steve McClaren


"Anybody who saw the Chelsea game, anybody who saw the Leeds game and again here today, they're three games which I felt we've dominated. We've created chances but not got the right result.

"We limited Newcastle to one or two chances. They scored one of them, so that's disappointing, but you need to score goals to win games. We created enough to win this game, to win the Chelsea game and to win the Leeds game.


"I thought Shay Given had a marvellous game for them, and that's what you need your keeper to do.


"I thought Newcastle defended resolutely, had a good attitude and got their blocks in, and we're not really getting the breaks in front of goal.

"It's not dropping for us at the right time, but I can't fault the performance, I can't fault the attitude of the players.


"There's no panic, it's not a case of having to hold our nerve. I heard Bobby say it two games ago, and what did they do? They've gone and won two games and gone up eight places today. The league is very tight."