JOHAN Elmander works harder warming up than I used to do in an entire pre-season training programme.

I get out of breath just watching him, so I was chuffed to see him finally get that goal-scoring monkey off his back at Middlesbrough.

I know he’s been getting a bit of stick from the fans but we saw what Johan is all about on Saturday. He never stopped running, even though he was up front on his own for much of the time; he worked his socks off and rounded it all off by scoring a great goal.

He deserved it and so did Gary Megson and the lads for sticking by him.

He’ll be feeling good now and I’m sure, after finally getting his second goal, that he’s going to get better and better.

All in all that was a smashing team performance up there and a thoroughly deserved win. The two early goals helped but I thought the lads flew out of the traps and got their just rewards.

I’m not so sure who should get the credit for the first goal, but I’m not surprised that Kevin Davies is claiming it. Goals are everything to strikers and it doesn’t matter how they are scored, they all count. I have a good crack with Gretar Steinsson, so I’ll be winding him up about it when I see him.

It was fantastic seeing everybody in a good mood up there in the North-east. It was a great result and a really good team performance with some outstanding individual contributions.

I was made up seeing Andy O’Brien put that mistake against Liverpool behind him and give another masterful display; Matty Taylor took his goal well – great footwork – and if he’d been able to steer that one on target that he put wide of the post at the end of a four-man move, it would have been one of the best goals of the day, anywhere.

Again I was impressed by Gavin McCann who’s now starting to get the credit he deserves, so all-in-all it was a smashing solid performance - and one I’m sure the 750-travelling fans enjoyed.

The Bolton fans never shut up all through the game and made me laugh when they taunted the Middlesbrough fans singing: “You should have gone Christmas shopping”.

Let’s hope they’re singing the same to the Sunderland fans on Saturday.

We’ve got the free travel going there again and I have to say it’s made a difference. I reckon that, apart from last season at Wigan, whenever the free offer has been on, it’s helped the team get at least a point – and you can’t say fairer than that away from home.

Let’s just hope we can get the same thing going with the Fanzone.

These are tough times financially, what with the credit crunch and Christmas coming up, and the fans are finding it difficult to get to all the games but I can assure them that their support really is appreciated and it does make a difference.

One note of warning, though. We encountered a few problems with fans being drunk before the game and they’d obviously smuggled some booze onto the coach.

So, starting on Saturday, the police and stewards will be checking bottles they suspect of having been opened or tampered with.