STEVE McCLAREN tonight praised Yakubu after his brace at Deepdale rocketed him to third in the Premiership goalscorers' charts and booked Boro a place in the FA Cup last eight.

Only Manchester United's Ruud van Nistelrooy and Arsenal's Thierry Henry have scored more goals than the Nigerian in all competitions this season. 

"He's a goalscorer," said the Boro boss. "Right foot, left foot or with his head, tap-ins and penalties, shots from outside the box, he's an all-round goalscorer and he's been a great signing for us and we've said all along he's going to be a top, top player.

"The first goal was unbelievable. We rested him on Thursday and we got our rewards today and that's what we've got to keep doing and he's just got to keep scoring."

Preston, unbeaten in 24 games before today, had the better of the opening half but were unable to breach Boro's resolute defence, even with skipper Gareth Southgate rested on the bench.

"It was important to go in at half time at nil-nil because we knew Preston would really get at us in the first half," said McClaren.

"Yakubu was starved of support but to go in at nil-nil was vital. We changed things at the break and said we don't need a replay, we need to open things up a bit.

"Coming back on Thursday from Europe it always takes a while to get the tempo and get your legs back and that's why we had the system we did, to make sure we weren't too open in the first half.

"After that performance in Stuttgart they were always going to be leggy.

"But to be perfectly honest, the way Riggott and Pogatetz were playing and with Schwarzer behind them we felt we could go for it because defensively we looked very strong.

"It was a tough game, as we knew it would be. We didn't play very well, we defended ever so well and that was our platform but the football was not good but we ground out a result and we've got strikers who can always score."

As if another clean sheet and a third straight win wasn't enough on an excellent day for Boro, there was also the successful return from injury of full-backs Tony McMahon and Franck Queudrue.

"We made a tactical change at half-time to take Tony off but he'd performed very well and Franck looked as if he'd never been away."

The one black spot was an injury picked by Fabio Rochemback late in the first half. The Brazilian midfielder will undergo tests but the initial signs suggest the injury could be serious.

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