First two minutes enough for Neil

MIDDLESBROUGH boss Neil Warnock says he knew after only two minutes his team would be “all right” against Nottingham Forest.

Chris Hughton’s side saw their seven-match unbeaten run ended by Boro as they fell 2-1 at the City Ground.

The Reds had gone into the game in high spirits, having seen off Millwall 3-1 at the weekend.

But it was a completely contrasting performance on Wednesday night and they found themselves two goals down, with former Forest striker Britt Assombalonga opening the scoring before the quarterhour mark and George Saville netting in the 50th minute.

Substitute Loic Mbe Soh bagged a consolation effort late on for the hosts but a red card for Yuri Ribeiro right at the end capped off a miserable evening at the City Ground.

“I think you could see we were at it from the first minutes tonight,” Warnock said after the match.

“I turned to the bench after about two minutes and said we’ll be all right tonight.

“Saturday (a 1-0 defeat to Birmingham City) we were so sloppy, and you can blame Covid and that we hadn’t trained for two weeks, but tonight I thought we were right at it.

“We played some good stuff and the only disappointment was we didn’t score more goals.

“We were unlucky on a few occasions and apart from the goal I can’t think of a save Marcus (Bettinelli) had to make.

“The three in midfield, I thought Jonny Howson was unbelievable, I think I’d give him 11/10 tonight.”

Assombalonga made the move to the Riverside from Forest in a £15m move in 2017 but is out of contract in the summer.

“When Britt’s like that, he’s as good as anything,” said Warnock. “I just wish he’d do that every week.”

When asked about Assombalonga’s future, he said: “We don’t worry about that here, there are a lot of players out of contract.

“What will be, will be, we’ll worry about that when we have to.”