Middlesbrough 4 Ipswich 1: Bamford hailed as the Boro keep on course

Bamford scored two outstanding second-half goals to ease the Teessiders to victory at the Riverside Stadium after a nervy opening half-hour.

Boro gained an early lead through Daniel Ayala, who glanced the ball past Dean Gerken, who had to be replaced by Bartosz Bialkowski following the collision, resulting in a five-minute delay to the match.

Championship top scorer Daryl Murphy drew the Tractor Boys level but Albert Adomah nudged Boro back into the lead before Bamford’s brilliant brace.

“Patrick deserves those goals for his work rate and he showed great confidence in the way he took both of them,” said Karanka.

“It was massive to win, we needed a performance today and I thought we were brilliant against a good, strong team.

“We’ve played against a very strong team who finished the game with four strikers and the main thing is that we’re eight points ahead of them in seventh.

“To be eight points ahead of them is a good situation for us.”

Boro’s first two goals came from set plays, and the Spaniard added: “We’ve been working on our set-pieces this week and it was brilliant how the first two goals came from them.”

The scoreline arguably flattered Boro, who have won and lost three out of their last six games, as Ipswich looked bright in the first half and hit the post with the score at 1-1.

Middlesbrough: Konstantopoulos, Kalas, Gibson, Ayala (Woodgate 24), Friend, Clayton, Leadbitter (Nsue 88), Adomah, Bamford, Reach, Vossen (Forshaw 68). Unused substitutes: Garcia, Tomlin, Ripley, Whitehead.

Ipswich Town: Gerken (Bialkowski 10), Chambers, Smith, Berra, Mings, Parr, Skuse, Bishop (Varney 84), Tabb (Wood 69), Sears, Murphy. Unused substitutes: Anderson, Chaplow, Bru, Clarke.

Referee: M Jones (Cheshire).

Man of the match: Patrick Bamford.