Aitor Karanka hailed his two-goal star striker Patrick Bamford after Middlesbrough romped to a 4-1 victory at home to Ipswich . Bamford scored two outstanding second-half goals to ease the Teessiders to victory at the Riverside Stadium after a nervy opening half-hour . Boro gained an early lead through Daniel Ayala before Sky Bet Championship top scorer Daryl Murphy drew the Tractor Boys level . Patrick Bamford rounds Bartosz Bialkowski before scoring his side 's third goal at the Riverside . Bamford reels away in celebration as he celebrates his goal against Ipswich Town in the lunchtime kick off . But Albert Adomah nudged Boro back into the lead before Bamford 's brilliant brace . 'Patrick deserves those goals for his work rate and he showed great confidence in the way he took both of them , ' said Karanka . 'It was massive to win , we needed a performance today and I thought we were brilliant against a good , strong team . Ipswich Town left-back Tyrone Mears runs with the ball as a tackle comes in from Adam Clayton . 'We 've played against a very strong team who finished the game with four strikers and the main thing is that we 're eight points ahead of them in seventh . 'To be eight points ahead of them is a good situation for us . ' Boro 's first two goals came from set plays , and the Spaniard added : 'We 've been working on our set-pieces this week and it was brilliant how the first two goals came from them . 'We 've put the points on the board in the early kick-off and that was important . 'Some of our performances of late have not been the best but today we did very well . Maybe some people expected us to be bad but we gave the perfect answer . ' The scoreline arguably flattered Boro , who have won and lost three out of their last six games but went back to the top of the table before other fixtures on Saturday afternoon . Albert Adomah strikes for goal in the . Ipswich looked bright in the first half and hit the post with the score at 1-1 . Town boss Mick McCarthy said : 'We worked on defending corners and conceded two goals from them . 'We were great in the first half and second half we were undone by a really good goal by Patrick Bamford , it 's great play by him . ' I 'll take responsibility after 3-1 . I threw strikers on , we were all over the place and a bit of a shambles at the end . We 're organised at corners normally and should n't concede . 'It looked a bit shambolic at the end as we pushed forward and I 'll take responsibility for that . 'Automatic promotion is looking hard now , we 're not going to win three more games than two or three teams between now and the end of the season . '
Middlesbrough boosted their chances of automatic promotion with a win . Teessiders put four goals past fellow promotion hopefuls Ipswich Town . Patrick Bamford starred with two second half goals in the 4-1 thumping . TL;DR Manchester United beat West Ham to move up into fourth place on Saturday night.