Boro played out yet another 0-0 stalemate at Swansea City to stay five points adrift of safety.
Middlesbrough’s Alvaro Negredo looks dejected
No one left the Liberty Stadium happy as relegation threatened Swansea City and Middlesbrough played out a dull 0-0 draw.
It is a result that does not calm either side’s nerves as they try and get away from the Premier League drop zone, although at least for the Swans it keeps them one point ahead of 18th-placed Hull City.
For Boro it is yet another blank in terms of scoring and while those ‘glass half full’ fans will point to another clean-sheet, it is a lack of goals that will seem them go down.
Middlesbrough are by far and away the lowest scorers in the English top flight. In fact their 20 league goals puts them one behind top-scorer Romelu Lukaku, who has netted 21 so far for Everton.
Everton’s Romelu Lukaku scores their fifth goal
That is a sorry state of affairs for a club paying Alvaro Negredo £100,000-a-week during his season-long loan stay from Valencia and has seen them to just four victories in 2016/17 – again the lowest in the division.
For a team now five points from safety, that seeming inability to score – and therefore win – will not see them claw enough ground back in their final nine games.
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