"We've set many standards and not really maintained them consistently enough. We've shown what we're capable of doing - we need to produce that on a consistent basis now.

"We can do it, we can play against the best. We've beaten Manchester United here, we've beaten Newcastle, we've beaten Liverpool, we've drawn with Chelsea.

"We've had big teams here and we've got Arsenal to come. It will be a great test for us.

"It's up to them. They can produce it, they've got to do it against everybody."

"I thought it was a tremendous win. The players got stronger and stronger as the game went on. The second-half performance was magnificent.

"I thought we deserved the win. It wasn't just the result, but a great performance."

About Juninho:

"He did well to last 90 minutes. I didn't expect him to be able to.

"I thought he started a bit rusty, but he just got stronger and stronger. The took the ball, wanted the ball, kept the ball, and in the last 15 minutes when we were under pressure, he did a great job for us."

A result and performance almost as miserable as the surroundings and local populace. 

Still, at least it was dark, which covers a multitude of sins in this sad smoggy hellhole. However, unlike the full-blooded strop we got ourselves in after our only other defeat of the year so far (at Wolves), we're a little more sanguine this time. 

Until the Premiership allow automatons to be cloned from world-class footballers and the game we love becomes a mutated version of Robot Wars, human failings will always win, and lose matches.

In the immediate aftermath, much finger-pointing went on, notably from United's assistant manager John Carver, who not for the first time took to the field to remonstrate with the referee after an away defeat. Meanwhile a young Welsh striker was talking his way into bother yet again - I suppose we should be grateful he didn't nut the linesman...

The focus of our anger was yet again Andy D'Urso, but while numerous players exercised their frustrations on him and his assistants there was surely a bit of what psychobabblers would call blame transference going on. 

Regardless of his antics, it wasn't the Essex clown's doing that we didn't register a shot on target - he didn't get some cowboy builder mates to knock up a wall in front of Schwarzer's goal.

Quite simply we had an off night, a collective mare. 

It's happened before and it'll happen again - hells bells, we were having off seasons a few years ago and winning one away match a season was par for the course.

All the moaning we indulged during the game was as much to do with frustration and a growing sense of injustice as the actual wrongs being inflicted on us. We didn't look in danger of conceding in the first half and found enough space to knock the ball around in a vaguely superior manner, without ever hurting the home side. 

And on his return to the area Jonathan Woodgate was literally head and shoulders above the Boro attackers, getting in some well-timed clearing headers and incisive tackles.

There certainly wasn't an air of desperation about the travelling fans at the interval, and given our recent good form it seemed a fair bet that we'd get something attacking the end after the break where the Mags were standing. 

Pre-match speculation had it that Boro would try and force an early goal in what was likely to be a frantic opening half hour or so, and really that just hadn't happened. 

So, with reasonably high hopes of preserving that unbeaten league record on this ground, Toon fans waded through inches of urine in the cramped conditions these cheapskates inflict on us. 

Unfortunately as the second half wore on we became increasingly disjointed and lost our ability to do the basics. Robert seemed to have backed himself for first goalscorer, twice opting not to part with the ball when an astute pass would have opened Boro up. 

And even before he went off we had lost our threat down the flanks and became more and more narrow, resorting to tossing balls forward that were simply gobbled up by Southgate and Ehiogu, who must have thought it was their birthday.

With Bellamy and Shearer both lacking the inspirational muse, we were looking in vain for a spark from somewhere, a Bernard-type moment. Unfortunately it just never came, the nearest thing to it being a shot agonisingly dragged wide by the weekend goal hero.

Whereas at Leeds we'd started steadily and built up an unstoppable momentum, here we just couldn't get a rhythm going and neither Viana or Ameobi could spice things up when called upon from the bench.

Boro were nothing startling and Juninho no more than competent, but they took their chance, caught us on an off night, cheered up their fans and took advantage of questionable refereeing to register a victory they've waited a long, long, time for.