Middlesbrough vs Swansea City. Sky Bet Championship.
Riverside StadiumAttendance24,780.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Middlesbrough and Swansea City at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday | Emmanuel Latte Lath scores twice as Michael Carrick's Boro keep their play-off hopes alive
Saturday 6 April 2024 18:45, UK
Emmanuel Latte Lath scored an impressive double as Middlesbrough kept their Sky Bet Championship play-off hopes alive with a 2-0 win at home to Swansea.
Latte Lath, a summer signing from Atalanta, moved into double figures for league goals this season with strikes either side of half-time as Boro extended their unbeaten run to seven games.
Michael Carrick's side have now kept five clean sheets in their last six games and head for rivals Hull on Wednesday night six points adrift of the play-off places.
Swansea are 15th in the Championship after a third successive game without a win. Last month's 2-0 South Wales derby success against Cardiff is the only win in the last six for Luke Williams' side.
They did have a couple of opportunities to get themselves in front early on at the Riverside, both falling to Jerry Yates.
The striker's touch let him down when he was unmarked in the box and picked out by Ronald Pereira Martins, allowing Jonny Howson to sweep up and clear. And inside quarter of an hour, Martins again teed up Yates but the 27-year-old was not able to direct his header on goal.
Finn Azaz and Isaiah Jones both had openings for Boro but flashed efforts wide from inside the box.
Latte Lath was Boro's liveliest player in the first half and he tested Carl Rushworth with a low early strike and called the keeper into action again with a strike from the edge of the box.
The Ivorian broke the deadlock in first-half stoppage time. He was first to pounce on a loose ball after Rushworth parried a Jones cross, but there was still plenty of work to be done. Despite the fact six Swansea defenders blocked the route to goal, the striker still managed to squeeze his shot in at the front post.
Swansea were almost gifted a leveller within two minutes of the restart. Dan Barlaser wanted too much time on the edge of his own box and as visiting attackers flocked around him, panicked and made a mess of an attempted backpass to Seny Dieng that flashed just past the post.
Barlaser again played Boro into trouble with a loose pass that was intercepted by Jamal Lowe. The forward charged towards the box and took aim for the far corner but Dieng was equal to it.
Swansea probed but struggled to create any clear cut chances and Latte Lath wrapped up the points 11 minutes from time when he cut on to his right foot and clinically found the top corner.
Middlesbrough's Michael Carrick:
"I'm delighted to be honest. It's the type of game that can pass you by if you don't do the right things.
"I thought the boys were disciplined and effective and efficient in the work we wanted to do.
"We knew they're good in taking the ball in possession. We were patient and disciplined, defended the box well and defended in our half well.
"Manu is coming into form. He's had a big impact, he's had a good return and hopefully there's a few more in him.
"Hopefully his form carries on. When you're on that run you want to keep surfing it. He's definitely doing that. We have two or three challenging games coming up, we'll need that impact player around the box.
"We're coming from behind. We've put a bit of a run together, we just have to try and extend that as long as we can.
"Wednesday is a new challenge and will have a bit of a say on what the picture looks like after that. We just have to keep chipping away and see how we end up."
Swansea's Luke Williams:
"It was just an atrocious game of football, an absolutely diabolical example of the Championship.
"It would have been nicer if we'd won, at least we could have then pretended to be happy about something, but goodness me.
"There was nothing right about that. It was like going to a charity game in the summer, no atmosphere, a bit of talking in the crowd.
"The first goal was a comedy, the second one isn't loads better. It's hard to find anything good about today, especially when you don't get any points."
