Hotshots hit the target as Boro bounce City

Middlesbrough 3 Man City 2

Neither of the strikers Steve McClaren recruited during the summer had hit the back of the net since Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink plundered a hat-trick in a 4-0 win at Blackburn on October 16, with Mark Viduka having to go back a month earlier for his last strike.

But between them they produced three finishes of the highest class to edge the verdict over Kevin Keegan's visitors, for whom Robbie Fowler ended his own personal drought and Bradley Wright-Phillips struck on his Premiership debut late on.