John Eustace's 'fortunate' admission and pride in Blackburn Rovers' Middlesbrough win

John Eustace admitted his Blackburn Rovers side were fortunate to see their winning goal stand against Middlesbrough on Wednesday evening, with goalscorer Dom Hyam in an offside position when he received the ball.

Hyam's 77th minute tap-in meant Rovers left the Riverside with a 1-0 win against a below-par Boro. But replays showed he was standing in an offside position when he finished off what had been a rare moment of quality, in an otherwise poor game, to get Todd Cantwell in behind the Boro defence.

Eustace said: "It's something the lads have been working on in training, getting those combinations on the sides. Becky coming in, we knew he could link up well with Todd just like Hedgey does. We have to allow the lads to play with freedom and style, we have good players at the football club.

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"The goal was another excellent one today. You don't always get the rub of the green but over the course of 46 games, it usually evens itself out. Tonight we were fortunate because he looked slightly offside. That's what we've deserved after some other decisions and we got that today."

While Boro feel some injustice at the defeat, it's hard to argue that they would have deserved anything more than a point. Having scored 15 goals in their three previous games, Boro missed key players in this one and it impacted their rhythm as they struggled to get going.

In comparison, Blackburn looked fresher having not played on Saturday due to a waterlogged pitch at Ewood Park. Instead, Eustace watched Boro fire six past Oxford United and was therefore full of pride for how his side carried out his game plan to nullify Michael Carrick's outfit.

"I am very proud of the performance," Eustace continued. "In the first half, I thought we were very good with the ball. We played some very good stuff but we missed that little bit of belief and we weren't clinical enough in that final third. "In the second half, we were always going to be under pressure.

"Middlesbrough are a good team and we knew they'd come out strong against us so we had to show a different side to our game. We were resilient and together and scored a really fantastic goal. We did a lot of work in the last few days, I went to watch them play against Oxford. I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing with the amount they scored!

"They're an excellent team and we knew we'd have to be disciplined and concentrated with our shape. I thought the lads were excellent. I try to watch all the opposition and you pick up on things that you don't see on the screens. It's small details but the lads have to go out, work their socks off and defend the box and play their football. It's our instructions but they have to carry it out and everyone was fantastic from the starters to the substitutes."