We were really resilient – John Eustace happy with gritty Blackburn victory

Blackburn boss John Eustace praised his side’s resilience as they earned a 1-0 win against Middlesbrough in the Sky Bet Championship.

Rovers secured back-to-back wins in the league after Dom Hyam’s 77th-minute strike proved to be the difference in a game of few clear-cut chances.

Their victory came after Middlesbrough retained the ball well throughout the entire game and Eustace believes his team had to show a “different side” in order to overcome Boro.

He said: “Obviously very proud of the performance, first half we were really good with the ball, played some really good stuff.

“Unfortunately just lacked that little tiny bit of belief or being clinical enough in that final third.

“Second half we were always going to be under pressure, Middlesbrough are a fantastic team, they’ve scored a lot of goals of late.

“We knew they’d come out strong second half, so again we had to show a different side to us and show that we were really resilient, together and defended really well and scored a fantastic goal.”

A scrappy first half saw the visitors have the best opportunity when Ty Dolan’s header flashed wide of a post and Middlesbrough dominated in possession after the break before the visitors struck.

Blackburn found the winner when Owen Beck hit a brilliant backheel pass into Todd Cantwell and the midfielder fired a low ball across the box for Hyam to stab home.

Hyam looked to have strayed into an offside position before scoring his goal and Eustace admitted Blackburn were “probably fortunate” for the goal to have stood.

“You don’t always get the rub of the green,” Eustace said.

“But over the course of the 46 games it usually evens itself out and tonight we were probably fortunate, it was just offside it looked like.”

Blackburn’s victory ended an impressive return for Boro, who had scored 15 goals in their previous three Championship fixtures, including six against Oxford at the weekend.

Middlesbrough boss Michael Carrick expressed his frustration at a “clearly offside” goal, but does not believe the defeat will “knock” his side, who come up against Hull on Saturday.

Carrick said: “It’s clearly offside, it’s pretty obvious. The less said the better, really, from my point of view.

“We weren’t at our best, we’ve ended up losing the game through a goal that’s not a goal really.

“A point would’ve been a point, we had a few opportunities or half-chances.

“We just couldn’t quite find that answer. It was going to come at some point, you’re not going to keep scoring goals at the rate we’ve scored them and it shows some of the football we’ve played has been really good.

“This won’t knock us too much, it’s one of those games that happen. It could’ve been a draw, should’ve been a draw, is what it is.”