Royals beaten at Boro

The Royals were easily beaten at Middlesbrough and also saw Brian Howard shown a straight red card for a poor tackle late in the game, but we had already lost the game by that point.

Brynjar Gunnarsson returned to the starting 11 at the expense of Simon Church, meaning Brian Howard pushed forward to play off loan striker Shane Long. Boro left former Rangers man Kris Boyd on the bench instead choosing to start former Royals striker Leroy Lita.

We made the worse possible start when Barry Robson scored a fantastic goal after just 24 seconds, driving forward from midfield and drilling his effort into the corner of the net.

The game was very open and Ian Harte went close to equalising, before Scott McDonald hit the cross bar. Jimmy Kebe also hit the woodwork with a volley from an excellent cross from McAnuff.

Just as it looked like we would go in a goal down at the break, Lita shot low across Federici and he couldn`t keep it out, and the former Reading player had scored against his old club. But the action didn`t end there, before half time Kebe went on a fantastic run forward and eventually scored from the edge of the six yard box.

We conceded a third not long after the hour when we failed to defend a set piece and David Wheater had all the time in the world to head home. We threw on Noel Hunt in a bid to get back in the game but all was lost when Howard went in for a 50/50 ball over the top and saw red.

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