“A crackers division” – Middlesbrough boss Wilder reacts to victory over Swans

Chris Wilder was right in there with an unintentional Christmas pun this afternoon after watching his side secure a 1-0 win over the Swans at the Riverside stadium but he did it recognising that it could have been all different for his side.

Wilder was grateful to Isaiah Jones’ first half strike which proved to be the difference between the two sides despite the Swans having the best of the chances and more than enough opportunities to have made the result look very different.

Wilder himself was seemingly relieved that a penalty wasn’t awarded towards the end of the first half when Jamie Paterson was deemed to have dived when under challenge, a challenge that promoted the Boro boss to say “When the boy goes through, you automatically think certain things when the goalkeeper comes flying out. The referee is in a better place than me to make that decision though, and he’s made that decision and felt the boy has gone over.

“I spoke to Luke afterwards and he said he’s come out and the boy has gone over early. I suppose any goalkeeper would say that. Decisions at this level are always going to affect results, as they have done for us in a couple of the previous games.”

You could tell though that he was happy at the way his side dug in during the game and whilst he admitted it wasn’t the performance he wanted he was delighted with the end result in the unpredictability of the Championship.

“We’ve talked about playing well, and if you can’t play well then you have to come out and find a way to win the game,” he added.

“We didn’t play as well as I would have liked, but we got a win and it just shows you what a crackers division it is off the back of the Millwall and Preston games.

“We showed different qualities today, and found a way to keep the ball out of the back of the net. Was that the way we want to play? Was that as we’ve played the last three? No.

“I think if the opposition had seen us in those last three games, which they most probably had, we were a lot better with the ball. Whether that was Swansea pressing us or us being sloppy in possession, I’d like to think that it was more us because we turned the ball over cheaply and I think we’re better than that.”