🎧'Pressure ramps up in automatic promotion race'
- Published
Former Championship winger Jobi McAnuff says the victories Middlesbrough and Ipswich Town picked up earlier this week were "huge".
Boro won 3-1 at Birmingham City on Monday night, while the Tractor Boys edged 1-0 past Hull City at Portman Road the following evening.
It leaves second-placed Middlesbrough three points ahead of Ipswich, who are third but have a game in hand and a currently superior goal difference.
"It was huge in terms of Middlesbrough just getting out of that mini slump after doing so well under Kim Hellberg," McAnuff told the BBC Football Daily 72+ podcast.
"Losing what was a huge game at Coventry and then a couple of games against teams you would expect them to go and win that they weren't able to.
"To go and pull off a result at St Andrew's which has been a real tough place for anyone to get results for a very long period of time, to be back in the goals, I think it was really important for them. Then it was over to you [Ipswich]."
McAnuff, who played in the second tier for Reading, Watford and Crystal Palace, says the constant pendulum swing of results is "the beauty of this stage of the season".
"That pressure definitely ramps up when the team you're challenging plays after and you've just got the three points," he added.
"Again for Ipswich to find a way to win, Hull made it really tough for them. But what a strike from [Azor] Matusiwa.
"When you've got that quality to unlock a game that looked as though it might have been drifting for a 0-0, it gives them a massive boost.
"They [Ipswich] are the ones I've always thought they are coming with the quality they've got. They're flip-flopping Jack Clarke and Anis Mehmeti at the moment, it is ridiculous."
