extracted from soccernet.
Updated: Feb. 9, 2006
McClaren cautious after victory over Coventry
Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren will allow his players to take
nothing for granted after they launched their recovery bid with a
narrow FA Cup Fourth Round replay victory over Coventry.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's first-half strike was enough to book the
Teessiders a fifth round trip to Preston and bring an end to a
difficult few days in the wake of Saturday's 4-0 humiliation by
Aston Villa at the Riverside Stadium.
But having seen his side draw the first game at the Ricoh Arena and
then demolish Sunderland 3-0 before capitulating against Villa,
McClaren admits there is more work to be done before the corner is
turned with Chelsea due in the north-east at the weekend.
'I thought that last week,' he admitted. 'We got a good result
against Coventry away, a good performance and result against
Sunderland and then went from elation to deflation on
Saturday.
'You can't say `That's it'. Each time you get a win, each time you
grind something out, you think 'This could be the start'.
'The good thing is, we did it without the likes of (Stewart)
Downing and (George) Boateng and (Franck) Queudrue and (Lee)
Cattermole, who has done well for us, and those players are coming
back.
'That will make us a stronger and a better team. On Saturday, we
have a game in which there should be no pressure on us, one we are
not expected to win, but who knows?'
McClaren was able to welcome back Chris Riggott and Fabio
Rochemback from injury and drafted £7.5million signing Aiyegbeni
Yakubu back into the starting line-up, and the early signs were
good as Boro dominated the first half and were worth their
20th-minute lead.
However, City rallied after the break and had it not been for a
sharp save from Mark Schwarzer in the final minute of the game,
Stern John might have taken the tie into extra-time.
'We asked the players for that and we worked on that and picked a
team for that,' McClaren said. 'That's the platform of any
performance.
'We got that platform, we got a good goal - it was important to
score the first one and to have something to hang on to and to
fight for - and the players did that.
'We could have done with a second, mind you, just to make things a
little easier, but we will settle for the win because this cup
competition is important to us and every game is important to us
now, to get a performance and a result.'
Coventry boss Micky Adams left Teesside believing his side had done
enough over the two games to win the tie and disappointed not to
have taken advantage of Boro's problems, although he admitted one
lapse in concentration had cost them.
'Obviously, that was in our favour to some degree, but you have got
to remember they have still got quality players, particularly at
the business end of the pitch, the frontline,' he said.
'They will kick in and produce a little bit of magic when you least
expect it, so you have got to be concentrated for 90 minutes. We
had one lapse, really.
'I know in the last 10 minutes, they had a couple of half-chances,
but we really took the game to them other than that. We felt it was
a good opportunity for us, but good luck to them.'