Middlesbrough 0 Leeds United 2: Warnock delight at first win

The game was won by half-time, Robert Snodgrass firing underneath Jason Steele in the 18th minute and Luciano Becchio converting Ross McCormack’s cross following a mistake by Justin Hoyte.

Cardiff, currently in the last play-off place, now have just four points on Leeds after Warnock’s first victory since taking over from Simon Grayson.

He said: “We have to win a number of games now but we’re quite capable of that so the players have got to show the consistency that I know they can show to have any chance whatsoever.

“The next game up (West Ham on Saturday) is fantastic. I said three weeks ago I wanted 30,000 fans at Elland Road, and they’ll bring 4,000. I can’t wait for that noise.”

He added: “I thought from the first minute we were on our game today and I suppose it was almost the complete away performance.

“We did the nasty things well today. The pressure was excellent and we put into practice what we’d talked about before the game and I thought the players enjoyed it.

“Every department did their jobs well, we didn’t do anything fancy, we could have made better decisions on the break in the second half to finish it off but it wasn’t to be.

“The fans were brilliant today and as I got off the bus I said ‘if they’re behind me like that when we haven’t scored a goal, heaven knows what they’ll be like when we win a game’ so it was nice to score and win a game.

“It’s fabulous for a manager to be wanted.”