Blues coming out of the smog?

Blues win at Middlesbrough to cheer up Andy Munro.

It’s a funny old game when Blues end a disastrous run of one point in seven games against a team that they have failed to beat away in seven years of trying. However, the team fully deserved their three points against a previously in-form Boro even though Warnock the Whinger was in full flow after the game, insisting that Ivan Sanchez should have been sent off for kicking an opposition player. In fairness, it was a kick out but it was more of a petulant flick which never landed so a sending off would have been harsh.

Up front, Sanchez and Jeremie Bela were a continual threat to the opposition and it was also good to see Scott Hogan scoring by finishing off a superb move with a trademark fox in the box finish.

At the back Mikel San Jose may have found his way as he looked calm and collected and topped things off with some excellent distribution, helped no doubt by the usual energetic display from Ivan Sunjic and Maikel Kieftenbeld in front of him.

Now I have to admit that if you’d spoken to me in the week before this game, my mantra would have been that Aitor Karanka should be sacked and, as a loan forward, I wouldn’t pay Hogan in washers. My view was also that San Jose would make the slow boat to China look like Donald Campbell’s Bluebird. However, I’m glad to be proved wrong but, as the saying goes, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, although to be honest, even one day in the sun is a welcome relief for all Bluenoses.