Middlesbrough moved back into the Championship's top two as four goals in 22 second-half minutes swept aside sorry Southampton.

Morgan Whittaker scored twice, with a rare Sam Silvera goal sandwiched in between, before substitute Alan Browne added a fourth as Boro took advantage of Ipswich Town having their match away to Portsmouth postponed.

It was a first win, and first goals, in five games for Kim Hellberg's team as they reduced the gap to leaders Coventry City to six points, after the Sky Blues had earlier lost away at Birmingham City.

Saints had wasted a number of chances to take the lead, but their poor festive form continued after their collapse.

It is now six games without a win for the south coast club as they sit in 15th, eight points away from the play-offs and nine above the relegation zone.

Injuries have taken a heavy toll on Boro over the festive period and they were forced into another defensive reshuffle inside the first few minutes as Alex Bangura had to go off.

But there was at least a debut for French defender Adilson Malanda following his switch from MLS side Charlotte and he made a crucial intervention in keeping out Flynn Downes' goalbound shot with goalkeeper Sol Brynn beaten.

Saints midfielder Tom Fellows is still waiting for his first goal since joining from West Bromwich Albion and he had a great chance to end that barren run but he shot over after Finn Azaz had played him in.

There was another big opportunity for the visitors to break the deadlock early in the second period when a shot ricocheted into the path of Adam Armstrong, only for Malanda to make another goal-saving block.

They were left to rue those wasted chances as Boro went in front with their first shot on target as a short corner paid dividends, with Matt Targett sliding a ball through for Whittaker to beat Gavin Bazunu.

From there, the hosts took complete control as Silvera grabbed his first Boro goal since February 2024, as he latched on to a long pass from Luke Ayling.

It got even better as Aidan Morris took advantage of poor Saints defending to set up Whittaker's second of the day, and 10th of the season for Boro's top scorer.

And there was still time for a first goal for the club for substitute Browne, as he was on hand after Bazunu had only parried Hayden Hackney's initial effort.

It was a welcome return to winning ways for Hellberg, but things have gone south for Tonda Eckert since he got the Southampton job permanently last month with this their heaviest defeat of a very disappointing season.

Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg told BBC Radio Tees:

"It was a well deserved win. It was a very good second half, a lot of goals and a message of belief and keep doing the things that we've done and that will give you results over time.

"You look at it and see that we haven't scored for seven hours or something like that and it goes another 45 minutes.

"But the intensity, how the players trained and worked every day at the training ground, how they are with each other and how they worked with their body language even in tough periods in terms of not getting results and the frustration of playing that type of football and not getting the wins or points from that, it shows the belief in the players in how they kept going."

Southampton head coach Tonda Eckert told BBC Radio Solent:

"The game has two parts today. We can talk about a game to 55 minutes and the part after that and the second part is nowhere near good enough and not acceptable.

"We need to become more resilient as a group. We can be 2-0 up today, but not every game is going to go that way.

"We've had some games that went this way and it all looks very nice but there are some games that are just not there and we need to be more resilient.

"It is two weeks until we play our next league game, we need to stick our heads together and find solutions for that because in the second half of the season there are many points to play for, but as I keep saying, we need to be more resilient."