Chris Wilder’s pride as Middlesbrough take Championship play-off race to final game with 3-1 win over Stoke City

Lewis Baker scored a first-half own goal and Crooks struck in each half before Nick Powell scored a stoppage-time consolation for the Potters.

The result keeps Middlesbrough’s Sky Bet Championship play-off hopes alive as the race to secure a spot comes down to the final day of the season.

Wilder praised his side’s performance and was pleased with their “hard-to-beat” attitude.

He said: “We wanted a Middlesbrough home performance and I thought we had that. I thought out of possession we were really good, we were structured, we were hard to beat, hard to break down.

“Stoke have got some talented boys, they are third in the form table, a huge club in the division, everybody understands that.”

Middlesbrough travel to Preston on the final day in a must-win game and can currently catch Luton or Sheffield United to secure a play-off place, but Wilder stressed the permutations are uncontrollable.

“You can’t control stuff like that, I don’t think it’s any good getting caught up in trying to work out who does what or who doesn’t, the psychology aspect of it,” said Wilder.

“There’s a thousand things you can chuck into the mix. The one thing you can control is your performance and I thought it was a great performance in terms of control of the game, which we did.”

Middlesbrough: Daniels, Dijksteel, Fry, Peltier, Jones (Bamba 90), Crooks, Howson, McGree, Tavernier, Sporar (Bola 75), Watmore (Coburn 83). Unused substitutes: Lumley, Payero, Connolly, Balogun.

Stoke City: Bursik, Forrester (Fletcher 46), Jagielka, Harwood-Bellis, Allen, Smith,Baker (Vrancic 70), Sawyers, Tymon, Brown, Jayden Philogene-Bidace (Powell 46). Unused subs: Chester, Clucas, Bonham, Wright-Phillips.

Referee: J Simpson (Lancashire).