In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told his people that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Had the revered American president wheeled himself to Eastlands yesterday lunchtime, he might have reconsidered.

Middlesbrough’s almost palpable fear of relegation and Manchester City’s fear of undermining great expectations stalked an absorbing game. Craig Bellamy’s neatly-taken winner dispelled some of City’s stormclouds, but Middlesbrough’s season is looking like a fairytale: grim. “I won’t walk out, no way,” sighed beleaguered Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate, who estimates his team need five more victories to retain their status. “The pressure is for me to carry, so the players can go out and play. I won’t shirk from that, but we really need a win.

“I’m disappointed we’ve not won again — we’ve done so many things right and it’s frustrating.”

Manchester City, all jittery enthusiasm and troubled earnestness, wanted only a drama-free passage to three points to justify fielding a £100m team for the first time in the club’s history. At the same time,

Middlesbrough were just desperate not to concede. Once Bellamy scored, the die was cast. This morning, City can begin to look to the horizon rather than over their shoulders. “We controlled the game,” noted City manager Mark Hughes. “We are delighted with the win. We’re showing a decent spell of form and we're enjoying it at the moment.”

Yet, rather than concomitant happiness, instant wealth has brought instant misery. City’s league form might most kindly be described as bumpy and Jo, Hughes’s blue-riband summer signing, has been ignominiously loaned to Merseyside, only to score twice yesterday on his debut for Everton. They have been defeated by Stoke City and Nottingham Forest; their love for Kaka turned out to be unrequited, while Shaun Wright-Phillips’s FA charge for violent misconduct and Micah Richards and Robinho helping various police forces with various enquiries hardly helped the mood.

Like a Premier League take on the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, if City thought they had it tough, their plight is sheer luxury compared to that of Middlesbrough, who may have clung on to Stewart Downing, but remain without a league victory since early November.

And they looked troubled indeed three minutes in. Academy graduate Stephen Ireland, City’s player of the season, unleashed a superlative pass towards Bellamy, who would have one of his more impish, less nigglesome afternoons. Brad Jones, more alert than his ball-watching defenders, hurtled out of goal and saved with his feet as Bellamy pulled the trigger. Shaken, Middlesbrough stirred themselves. Their defensive homunculuses stood tall against City’s tiny strike force, their midfield dropped deep and when they broke after 28 minutes, Adam Johnson crossed low from the right and Afonso Alves met it first time, but debutant Shay Given spectacularly repaid a fraction of his £8m fee.

Middlesbrough‘s massed doughtiness notwithstanding, City were nervily dominant. Jones further waxed his burgeoning reputation by pawing Bellamy’s snapshot aside and then foiling Robinho after the Brazilian’s dazzling cameo. And when Ireland’s deft 38th-minute header beat Jones following a cross from Wayne Bridge — a man for whom the very phrase “follow the money” could have been invented — the crossbar intervened to grant Middlesbrough relief.

The Teesside dam broke after 51 minutes. Bellamy gathered Nigel De Jong’s crossfield pass, danced around Emmanuel Pogatetz who, unaware of Middlesbrough’s imminent peril, seemed only concerned not to concede a penalty. Bellamy shot low and lethally through Robert Huth’s legs and past Jones. Now, for one team at least, the fear factor evaporated.

Exultant, City played as if a sack of despair had been lifted from their shoulders and while Middlesbrough’s midfield pushed up, they proved less adept at chasing what they needed rather than holding onto what they had. Neither Alves nor Marlon King were capable of unsettling Vincent Kompany or Nedum Onuoha, until the 70th minute when Kompany’s first and last misjudgment allowed King to run through on goal, but the commanding Given barely needed to stretch himself to gather the striker’s feeble effort.

Indeed, so assured were City, despite their slender advantage, Middlesbrough’s powderpuff rally was effectively over before it began and by the end they were further indebted to Jones’s athleticism. For them, right now, there is much more to fear than fear itself.

MANCHESTER CITY: Given 7, Richards 6, Onuoha 7, Kompany 7, Bridge 6, Zabaleta 6, De Jong 7, Ireland 7, Wright-Phillips 6, Bellamy 7, Robinho 6 (Caicedo 83min)

MIDDLESBROUGH: Jones 7, Wheater 6, Riggott 6 (Hoyte 68min), Huth 6, Pogatetz 6, Johnson 6 (Tuncay 74min), Bates 6, Digard 5 (O’Neil 61min), Downing 5, Alves 4, King 4