Boro boost after Sinclair's howler

Frank Sinclair finally escaped the hoots of derision from celebrating Middlesbrough fans at the Riverside only to stumble into his stunned manager Dave Bassett and a public broadside.

If Leicester's error-prone centre half expected sympathy with his tea after the bizarre own goal that sank his side deeper into the Premiership quicksand, he should have known better.

Perhaps it was fate's idea of a joke, after Bassett's midweek praise for Boro's defensive towers Ugo Ehiogu and Gareth Southgate, that Sinclair would contrive to achieve from 35 yards what Leicester's strikers cannot manage from half-a-dozen.

Had the suffering goalkeeper been anyone other than teammate Ian Walker, Sinclair would have been the hero Leicester are now beyond needing after seven successive defeats left a 12-point gap between them and safety. Instead, Bassett left Sinclair in no doubt that such gaffes will count against him when the dust has settled on their imminent demise. Whether he was as speechless as even Boro's players when Sinclair decided the game in the third minute by nonchalantly aiming a back-pass with alarming pace beyond Walker's despairing dive, he did not say.

But Bassett had collected his thoughts by the inquest. He said: 'Frank wasn't expecting to get the ball, but you still have to deal with it and it's indicative of how capable we are of shooting ourselves in the foot.

'We don't score many goals, so that makes it even more ludicrous, and Frank made a ricket against them at our place earlier in the season when it was his fault Middlesbrough scored their winner.

'Naturally, he's gutted. We haven't sat around analysing it, but he knows it's cost us. It's not helped our cause, that's for sure.You don't see Southgate or Ehiogu doing that. It's down to the quality of decisions.' Jonathan Greening hit the post with Boro's best legitimate chance to seal their sixth win of an unbeaten 10-match spell that has lifted Steve McClaren's side clear of the relegation zone and into Sunday's FA Cup quarter-final against Everton.