Middlesbrough vs Sheffield Wednesday, match report: Aitor Karanka celebrates century from on top of the league

“And, yeah, we are top of the league,” said the announcer as a raucous Riverside Stadium celebrated a narrow, vital victory today that has Middlesbrough leading the Championship after half their season. Regardless of what Derby County do at Leeds on Tuesday night, this ground will stage a top-two meeting on Saturday.

Middlesbrough will enter that game seeking an eighth consecutive clean sheet in the league. It is some record. Aitor Karanka’s team have let in only two league goals on Teesside all season and they end 2015 having not conceded one in the Championship here since mid-September.

Daniel Ayala has been central to that – literally – and it was the Spaniard’s 81st-minute intervention that ensured another clean sheet, heading off the goal-line from Daniel Pudil.

A Spanish centre-half himself, Karanka understands what Ayala brings. This was Karanka’s 100th game in charge and, having lost the play-off final in May, they are seven points better off than last season. Then they were fourth, now they are first.

But having raced into a lead, when Christian Stuani stabbed in Stewart Downing’s low cross, with the clock in the South Stand showing 44 seconds, Boro were unable to convert their first-half superiority. Hence they had to weather what Sheffield Wednesday threw at them after half-time.

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Two minutes after Stuani’s opener, had Emilio Nsue’s goalbound shot not been deflected over by Glenn Loovens, it would have been different. In those first 20 minutes Middlesbrough played some lovely football.

But the 1-0 deficit meant that Wednesday were able to rejig at the interval and Pudil and Fernando Forestieri gave the Owls energy.

But Wednesday had a gripe: that they played on Saturday against Birmingham, while Boro’s match at Blackburn was called off. Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal was furious. He revealed the club had contacted the Football League to try to get this game moved back 24 hours.

“The League said: ‘No, we can’t do anything’,” Carvalhal said. “And I don’t think that’s good for the competition. The difference between playing and not playing is massive.”

Winded by Stuani’s goal, it took the visitors 52 minutes to win a corner. But Barry Bannan gradually became more influential, pressure built and a couple of goalmouth scrambles followed, then Boro would break – Ayala almost made it 2-0 with a header on 70 minutes. Ten minutes later, at his own end, Ayala used that head again.

Middlesbrough (4-4-1-1) Konstantopolous; Nsue (Amorebieta, 89) Ayala, Gibson, Friend; Stuani, Leadbitter, Clayton, Adomah (Fabbrini, 61); Downing; Kike (Kalas, 73). Substitutes not used Mejias, De Pena, Forshaw, Zuculini. Sheffield Wednesday (4-5-1) Wildsmith; Palmer, Loovens, Hutchinson (Pudil, h-t) Wiggins; Sougou, Semedo (Forestieri, h-t) Bannan, Lee, Helan (Nuhiu, 68); Joao. Substitutes not used Price, Sasso, Hunt, Wallace.

Referee D Coote (Nottinghamshire).