McClaren's selection poser

The two players triggered Middlesbrough's victory against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, Juninho setting up Mendieta's spectacular opening goal before the World Cup winner's strike secured the three points.

Juninho has been on the bench for Boro's last six Premiership games as McClaren has sacrificed the Brazilian's craft for extra graft in an attempt to move away from the danger zone.

But with his strikers still looking impotent in front of goal, the interplay between Juninho and Mendieta gave McClaren's team a cutting edge at the Riverside.

The Middlesbrough manager said: "Juninho and Mendieta are two great players and footballers can always play together.

"You saw that when Juninho came on and you could see that on Wednesday. People like that win you football matches and they won us this game.

"In tight games you're looking for something special, and it was an unbelievable strike by Mendieta.

"That opened the game up, and it was then a great second goal set up by Boudewijn Zenden and finished by Juninho."

McClaren refused to get carried away with the euphoria that surrounded Middlesbrough's second win in four days following the Carling Cup triumph at Wigan Athletic.

Boro are still uncomfortably close to the bottom three, despite leapfrogging Wolves and moving up to 14th place with Saturday's victory.

And McClaren said: "They're three valuable points and we've ended the week perfectly, but we haven't turned the corner completely.

"This has been a hard week and I couldn't have asked for any more from the week, but we've still got a long way to go.

"We've played better than that and lost games, but credit to Wolves. They made it very difficult for us.

"You could see why they hadn't lost for six matches and we had to be patient.

"The performances against Tottenham, Wigan and Wolves have been three very different performances, but the team has shown tremendous character."