Boro Mania

A young Boro reserve side blitzed their way past Sheffield Wednesday in the totsportcasino.com League Cup, winning 5-0 at the Riverside Stadium.

Boro fielded a relatively young but strong side that included four players who sat on the bench against Villa Marvin Emnes, Adam Johnson, Josh Walker and Jonathan Grounds. Matthew Bates also started the game as he continues his comeback following knee ligament damage.

Boro started the game well and a lot of the attacking threat was coming down the left hand side as Johnson and Joe Bennett combined well on a couple of occasions, Bennett firing a shot just wide of the Wednesday goal after a mazy run from Johnson.

Boro took the lead in the 14th minute as England Under-19 International Jonathan Franks took a pass 25 yards out and fired a right foot shot into the bottom corner to give Middlesbrough a well deserved lead.

A few minutes later Boro thought they had doubled their lead as Marvin Emnes turned in Nathan Porritt's volley only to see the linesman's flag raised for offside. Emnes got his goal a few minutes later though, picking up a loose pass from Wednesday in the midfield he set off on a twisting and weaving run befire unleashing a powerful drive from the edge of the area that was too powerful for O'Donnell to keep out.

Boro went into the half time break leading 2-0 and Emnes was replaced by Gary Martin for the second half.

The second half started quieter than the first though Wednesday rarely threatened David Knight in the Boro goal, Matty Bates and Jon Grounds performing brilliantly at the heart of the defence.

With 15 minutes to go the result was put beyond any doubt as the impressive Gary Martin found Shaun Saiko in the area and the Canadian midfielder buried his low shot into the bottom corner. Minutes later Martin found Jonathan Franks in the box and the winger spun and fired the ball past the helpless Wednesday goalie.

With a few minutes remaining Adam Johnson clipped a ball over the top for the run of Joe Bennett. The impressive left back checked back well onto his left foot and smashed the ball home.

A very good performance from the Boro reserves, their next game in the totesportcasino.com league cup is against Bradford on Tuesday, before completing the group's final game against Grimsby in January.

Marvin Emnes looked a lot sharper in the first half and took his goal very well, he held the ball up well and linked in with the midfield. The central defensive pairing of Matthew Bates and Jonathan Grounds were outstanding up against some experienced and physical players in Akpo Sodje, Deon Burton and Francis Jeffers. Josh Walker was tidy in the midfield and showed a good range of passing, Jonathan Franks was very lively and bagged a couple of good goals and Porritt threatened at times but drifted in and out of the game.

I was impressed with young Gary Martin when he came on, he held up the ball well and played some very neat one touch passes as well as creating two goals.

There were a number of candidates for man of the match in this game, Franks for his two goals and Bennett for his overall display but i'm going to give it to Jonathan Grounds who I thought was outstanding at the heart of the defence and coped very well with the big, physical Sodje.