Middlesbrough manager Jonathan Woodgate was keen to keep his feet on the ground after his side defeated Charlton 1-0 at the Valley to climb out of the bottom three.
Boro’s victory, the first since New Year’s Day, took them out of the Championship relegation places, with their opponents replacing them in the bottom three.
Despite having a gap of two points between themselves and the drop zone, Woodgate was fully aware of the amount of games left – and the likelihood of more twists and turns.
He said: “All results are big at this time. All we do is to look to the next game. Let’s not put points figures on it, and what it takes to stay up – just one game at a time.
“We’re still in the dog fight, don’t get excited because we’ve won one game. That won’t be happening in the dressing room.
“I’m really pleased. Today I thought we were exceptional at times in the game today, we created a lot of opportunities and it could have been more than one goal.
“I asked for more intensity in the second half, I didn’t want us to drop off and we didn’t.
“It’s going to be nervy towards the end, it’s the nature of every league in the world – if you’re winning one-nil with a few minutes to go, tell me a manager who doesn’t get nervous.”
He said “We deserved something from the game but you can’t give teams one-nil leads and we’ve done that in the last two weeks.
“You keep doing that you’re not going to win games, simple as that – we’re not good enough to give them one-nil leads and to try and come back and win.
“We have to learn from that, you can’t afford to gift them goals. Like last week it’s a schoolboy thing, just basic, so poor.
“It’s so tight down the bottom. If we won today we’d have probably climbed three places I think.
“There’s a long way to go. I said to the players, the most important thing is that we stick together – no passing the blame on to other people, it’s the last thing we need to do.”
