Swansea City 1 Middlesbrough 0: Frustrated Mowbray beaten by Sinclair's late deflected effort

Scott Sinclair claimed a late winner as Swansea eventually made their dominance pay in this npower Championship clash at Liberty Stadium.

The third-placed Swans had been guilty of wasting a series of chances against a limited Middlesbrough side but Sinclair, called into the England Under-21 squad last week, cut in from the left flank in the 85th minute to fire his 12th goal of the season past Jason Steele with the help of a deflection.

The goal was just reward for the Welsh outfit, who were always in control and have gained ground on second-placed QPR in the table.

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Boro boss Tony Mowbray was frustrated that a battling effort from his side, who remain above the relegation zone on goal difference, had gone unrewarded.

"I was disappointed and frustrated," he said. "The longer the game went on the more I thought we may sneak a goal, although it would have been harsh on them.

"We knew they would have a lot of ball and we tried to frustrate them and in that last 20 minutes we had a couple of chances," he said.

"For the goal there was a big deflection that took the ball past the keeper, who was excellent today.

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"The plus points for us today were our work ethic and team spirit, but when we had the ball we were not as good and we need to improve on that area as a team and we will be working on that over the next few weeks."

Boro left Kris Boyd on the bench after his goalscoring exploits against Scunthorpe, with Scott MacDonald and Leroy Lita getting the nod up front.

Captain Gary O'Neil blazed over from Boro's first meaningful attack before the visitors' difficult start was compounded when midfielder Kevin Thomson limped off after 20 minutes, Nicky Bailey his replacement.

Matthew Bates diverted a Craig Beattie cross wide with Sinclair lurking although Boro did enjoy a couple of decent counter-attacks, with Lita looking sharp.

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Middlesbrough's best chance came at the start of the second half with O'Neil's volley from a poor Williams header being blocked by Garry Monk.

Rangel's volley was palmed away by Steele and Pratley headed over before Sinclair came to the rescue, finding space as he cut into the box from the left flank and getting away a right-footed shot that took a deflection to creep inside the near post.

Swansea: De Vries, Williams, Tate, Monk (Taylor 74), Rangel, Pratley, Dyer, Sinclair, Allen, Gower (Cotterill 62), Beattie (Dobbie 72). Unused substitutes: Ma-Kalambay, Orlandi, Agustien, Richards.

Middlesbrough: Steele, McMahon, Wheater, Bates, Bennett, Hoyte (Boyd 87), Thomson (Bailey 21), O'Neil, Robson (Arca 61), McDonald, Lita. Unused substitutes: Ripley, Hines, Kink, Tavares.

Referee: K Hill (Hertfordshire).

Man of the match: Jason Steele.