Middlesbrough 3 Leeds United 0: Boro exact full price as United implode at Riverside

After being a real home from home away from Elland Road for the past two decades, Middlesbrough firmly slammed the door shut in United’s faces yesterday and unceremoniously pulled away the welcome mat – albeit with a little bit of help from officials Neil Swarbrick and Scott Ledger.

Beaten just once in 13 previous visits by the Tees, Leeds had a rare Riverside nightmare to slump to their heaviest defeat at Boro since August 1992.

After last season’s two bitter defeats at the hands of United, which ultimately played a major part in their failure to clinch automatic promotion to the Premier League, Boro were afforded a spot of schadenfreude.

More especially after Leeds were denied a legitimate-looking ‘goal’ in the 55th minute after trailing 2-0 at the break, with Mirco Antenucci’s strike ruled out for offside following a consultation between the officials – despite no flag having been raised.

After being on the receiving end of a ‘goal’ being harshly turned down at Elland Road at a key juncture at the start of last season – when Albert Adomah netted – Boro would not have minded the tables being reversed.

Even accounting for that decision going against Leeds yesterday afternoon, the visitors’ defensive ditherings and in particular those of Giuseppe Bellusci and Sol Bamba, were the main contributor to their defeat.

Bellusci in particular had a wretched time of it, conceding a comical 32nd-minute own goal to gift Boro a 2-0 interval lead.

Bamba, magnificently resolute in the fixture at Boro last term, was more brittle than cast iron this time around, with his costly slip enabling substitute Diego Fabbrini to seal victory late on.

Boro’s performance was far from the flowing one they delivered in the Riverside fixture last term when they racked up 27 efforts on goal and 10 on target, only to somehow go down 1-0.

This time around they managed just two shots on target, but still hit three goals, with a bit of assistance from Leeds’s defensive theatre of the absurd.

Head coach Aitor Karanka will not really care too much after securing his first victory over Leeds at the fifth time of asking with Boro also recording a seventh successive win in all competitions in the process for the first time since 1995-96.

Boro are efficiency personified in both boxes, something that German-born Uwe Rosler was minded to appreciate.

This professionalism was also displayed, according to Rosler, immediately after Antenucci had seemingly hauled Leeds back into contention when several home players assembled around Swarbrick and Ledger ahead of the ‘goal’ being ruled out.

Leeds, on the other hand, meekly acquiesced.

Rosler, also critical that home player Cristhian Stuani was not dismissed early in the second half after fouling Charlie Taylor when he was already on a booking, said: “The referee got the two major decisions wrong. Stuani should not be on the field and the ‘goal’.

“He (the linesman) told me that he had to ask for help from the referee. Just imagine – he had to ask for help from the referee. So he wasn’t sure about the decision.

“How he can give offside when you’re not sure? A decision like that is the turning point in the game; he has to be 100 per cent sure that it’s the right decision.

“Even when you watch the television, nobody is 100 per cent sure. But we got told we are too nice and this is a great learning day.

“We need to be more ruthless. When you do it (by) the book and always be nice, you don’t get far in life sometimes.”

Just as the portents were not set fair for Boro ahead of their play-off final at Wembley when they arrived late due to traffic congestion, so you got the sense that the stars would not align for Leeds ahead of kick-off.

The news that top-scorer Chris Wood had not travelled due to a knock was a most unwelcome development, with United’s starting line-up also minus Sam Byram, who started on the bench after being unwittingly thrust into the limelight following powderkeg comments by Massimo Cellino in the week.

Jordan Botaka was handed a debut, while Boro brought back all of their big-hitters, with many among the big Sunday crowd barely in their seats when the hosts went in front.

Trickery from Stuani bamboozled Taylor and his pull-back got the United defence in a complete tangle, Nugent cashing in on the disarray to fire past Silvestri.

Boro produced a powerhouse opening that did not augur well for Leeds, who almost went two-down but for Silvestri making a flying save after Bamba diverted Adomah’s cross goalwards.

United weathered the storm and started to impose themselves with Antenucci testing Dimitrios Konstantopoulos before another awful faux pas doubled Boro’s lead.

The guilty party was Bellusci, who had a brain-storm in heading George’s Friend’s centre past the helpless Silvestri. Alex Mowatt then drew a scrambling save from Konstantopoulos with Leeds playing catch-up after such an avoidable indiscretion.

Boro are not the sort of side to spurn a two-goal buffer, having not shipped two goals at home since Sheffield Wednesday won 3-2 in August 2014.

They were not brilliant on the restart – they did not have to be. But functionality had its merits.

Konstantopoulos made a smart save to deny Mowatt before the hosts benefitted from the non-award of a goal for Antenucci, whose ire was compounded when the Boro goalkeeper kept out a header not long after.

The tin lid on a tough afternoon for United arrived on 81 minutes.

Bamba’s horrible slip enabled Fabbrini to home in on goal and after rounding Silvestri, the Italian netted with aplomb from a narrow angle.