Middlesbrough have stormed to a top six spot in the Championship this season so far and will fancy themselves to stay there as the campaign comes to a close in May - and Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman believes so too, as he told Free Super Tips that you would be a 'fool' to rule them out of the promotion running.

With three league wins in a row, Neil Warnock has led his side to a play-off place and will hope to keep their incredible run going again against Birmingham this weekend.

With victories over the likes of Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest so far - two other sides that would fancy themselves as promotion hopefuls - Boro have proven they can do the business when it matters in the second tier this year. Now, Don Goodman has also backed the club to challenge for a promotion spot this year, as he labelled anyone ruling them out of the hunt as a 'fool.'

 

 

Speaking to Free Super Tips, he said: "This Neil Warnock team probably play more football than most of the Neil Warnock teams I've seen in the past. He would acknowledge that himself, but eight of the 11 signings he brought in against Cardiff have been his signings.

"He's brought technical players in and decided to go a different way, he's still got that out-ball and lads willing to work and run. There's a lot of technically quality players who aren't just going to play long-balls and hit the channel.

"I really like what I see from Middlesbrough and even before the wins started to come in, statistically they were playing better than the results suggested. I'm a believer that if your performance levels are high, then you are going to win more games than you lose.

"That seems to have turned for Middlesbrough now, they're playing well and picking up positive results. Anybody that rules out Neil Warnock getting a promotion for me is a fool."

Boro have been solid both home and away this year too, sitting in eighth in the home form rankings and 11th in the away ones. They've also been able to hit the back of the net on a regular basis too, with 17 goals so far and they've spread the goalscoring burden around the squad to boot. Add in a solid defence that has managed to concede only 13 goals so far and you can see they've been playing well on both sides of the ball.

Neil Warnock will be hoping to keep that up with Middlesbrough - and if he can, then you certainly can't rule them out of the running for either a play-off spot or even an automatic promotion one.

The Verdict

Neil Warnock is one of the most experienced managers in the field at this level and you don't get that much time in the job or as a manager without being good at your job - and Warnock is proving, once again, that he can still cut it in the Championship.

He has worked hard so far to build a solid squad at Boro and leading them to a promotion this year would be yet another achievement for Warnock to add to his already huge collection.

Boro just have to remain consistently good and keep playing to a high level. If they can continue to perform to a high standard week-by-week without dropping off or losing form, then they could certainly be in the running at the end of the season.