Whittaker on target again as Boro routs Saints
Morgan Whittaker scored twice as Middlesbrough routed a poor Southampton 4-0 to move up to second in the EFL Championship.
All of Boro's goals at Riverside Stadium arrived in 22 second-half minutes, with the hosts having failed to score or win in their previous four outings.
Whittaker scored from Boro's first shot on target in the 54th minute and, after Sam Silvera celebrated a rare goal, Whittaker doubled his personal tally when finishing from Aidan Morris's centre.
Alan Browne also netted his first Boro goal to complete the comprehensive win, as the hosts made the most of Ipswich Town's clash at Portsmouth being postponed to climb into the top two.
Whittaker was a constant thorn in the Saints' side, finishing the match with six shots, four of which came inside the box and two of which were on target.
"It was a well deserved win. It was a very good second half, a lot of goals and a message of belief and keep doing the things that we've done and that will give you results over time," Boro boss Kim Hellberg said.
"You look at it and see that we haven't scored for seven hours or something like that and it goes another 45 minutes.
"But the intensity, how the players trained and worked every day at the training ground, how they are with each other and how they worked with their body language even in tough periods in terms of not getting results and the frustration of playing that type of football and not getting the wins or points from that, it shows the belief in the players in how they kept going."
Saints boss Tonda Eckert warned his side it needs to step up for the second half of the season.
"It is two weeks until we play our next league game, we need to stick our heads together and find solutions for that because in the second half of the season there are many points to play for, but as I keep saying, we need to be more resilient," he said.
