Southampton 1 - Middlesbrough 3

Middlesbrough spoilt the party at The Dell - taking the shine off Saints' two big announcements by ending Southampton's winning run.

But Glenn Hoddle's men had only themselves to blame as they had more than enough chances to win and gave away three sloppy goals to Borough who have still to lose away from home this season.

The Teesiders went in front against the run of play after 16-minutes when a quality solo goal from Alen Boksic taking advantage of a gap on the Southampton left.

And Gianluca Festa bundled home the second on 31-minutes after Dean Richards and Uwe Rosler failed to clear in front of goal. Marian Pahars gave Saints hope 11-minutes from time with a diving header from a knock down by James Beattie but almost immediately Saints gave away another goal.

This time it was Paul Jones at fault as he pushed a cross straight under the head of Boksic who nodded his second. Tahar El Khalej and Trond Soltvedt had earlier hit the same post for Saints who also saw on loan goalkeeper Gary Walsh make two magnificent point blank range saves from Dean Richards and El Khalej.

Referee Graham Poll added on five minutes for Middlesbrough time wasting but Saints were unable to mount the kind of revival they had done here against Liverpool as the game petered out tamely.

For full coverage of all the sporting action don't miss THE PINK

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.