Gus Poyet thanked his players for putting his plans into action at Middlesbrough today.

Albion moved into fifth place in the Championship with a 2-0 win at The Riverside.

They topped off a solid defensive display with goals in the last half-hour from Andrea Orlandi and David.

Boss Poyet said: “We had a different kind of team today.

“Sometimes people are looking for excitement, speed, one versus one. Today we had the strongest team we could probably play in terms of physical ability and we knew it would be very difficult for them to score.

“The side of it we were a little worried about was us getting on the score sheet.

“We needed David, Deano (Dean Hammond), Crofty (Andrew Crofts) and Andrea to pop up maybe with a goal and not leave all that job to Leo (Ulloa). And it worked out!

“The key to the whole situation was the players themselves believed this was our best team for this type of game.”