Can an entire football squad have a collective case of bipolar disorder? After the Wigan game on Saturday I was understandably depressed (along with just about every Boro fan not perpetually hooked up to a morphine drip) over our blunt attack and our seeming lack of fight.

Coming back home tonight after watching us comfortably dispatch West Ham, I may as well be writing about a different team.

So what changed in the space of four days? Well, the line-up, the formation, the strike force and, of course, the competition. Was it the attacking 4-4-2 team that made the difference, or the mental aspect of playing in the FA Cup instead of the league? The smart answer would be: a bit of both, but let’s analyse it a bit more.

Tonight, Middlesbrough looked like a completely alien side compared to the insipid XI who have turned up on a Saturday afternoon in recent weeks. There have been a couple of notable differences: firstly, the return of Huth and the instatement of Brad Jones in goal. With Justin Hoyte at right back and Poggy on the left our defensive unit looks quite solid again, and tonight we never really came close to conceding a goal that would usually be obligatory and as such we never came under heavy pressure at the end of the game.

The second difference was fairly minor in midfield: with Didier Digard now likely to miss the rest of the season with injury, Matthew Bates was forced to fill in at midfield. Given that Digard has been one of our few impressive performers this season this could have been a major blow, and although we missed his composed presence in the centre, Bates shielded the back four to decent effect.

The final and most significant difference was up front. Jeremie Aliadiere has been used mainly as a winger this season but tonight Southgate deployed him as the lead striker and the effect was staggering. I've grown so used to watching Afonso Alves' static, shuffling display up front that I forgot what a hard working striker looks like. Aliadiere doesn't get many goals, true, but neither does Alves. What Ali does do is run the defence ragged with constant pace and movement. Alves plays like he's still in Holland, hanging off the shoulder of the defender and only working up a sweat when the perfectly weighted ball is played in behind the defence.

When he does move he comes deep for some touches of the ball, where he adds little to nothing. Ali, by contrast, popped up everywhere and chased everything. He appeared out wide putting balls into the box and ran the West Ham centre backs ragged, creating space for Tuncay to operate. The Turk was also recalled after losing his place "in the hole" to Downing in the last fortnight. Tuncay has struggled for form recently, but he clearly enjoyed playing behind a willing runner like Aliadiere and was a constant threat.

The result of all this was a game that Boro comfortably dominated. West Ham had a few chances, mainly from outside the area, but despite some neat passing they offered relatively little up front. Carlton Cole was shackled and Freddy Sears was muscled out of the game by Pogatetz. Boro scored two spectacular goals and looked more likely to score a third than the Hammers did to get one back. When they were chasing the game Southgate did the right thing by bringing on Marvin Emnes, who is raw pace epitomised, and we broke away from a tiring West Ham midfield multiple times.

As for the goals… With Stewart Downing stood over a free kick a good twenty five yards from goal I commented in dubious tones to my attendant friends Matt and James that "I can only remember one Downing free kick ever going in" (against Blackburn, last season- feel free to point out other instances). As was the case when I criticised him in this blog, part of him appeared to hear me, because the free kick was absolute perfection. Over the wall with pace and curl, it clipped the underside of the crossbar in the very top of the right corner and ricocheted down into the floor of the goal and then up again into the roof of the net.

That was the first meaningful strike of the game after only five minutes. The second arrived almost exactly fifteen minutes later. James Tonkins, the young centre back, made a right old hash of keeping track of both Gary O'Neil's deep diagonal ball into the box and the roving Aliadiere. With his goalkeeper advancing nervously and the Frenchman breathing down his neck, Tomkins panicked and hooked a weak clearance over his shoulder for Tuncay to volley past a stranded Rob Green from twenty yards out.

It could well have been more, but in truth in hardly mattered, because the result was massively uplifting to everyone on the winning side. The goals were beautiful, the defence was solid and Premiership opposition were comprehensively outclassed for the first time in months. Everton now await at Goodison Park in yet another FA Cup quarter final. After this result, we might just think we can get past them, especially as David Moyes' squad is being held together by sticky tape right now.

Amazing what a difference a win can make, isn't it? The pressing issue now is getting a result against Liverpool on Saturday, who haven't won at the Riverside for the past six seasons and counting. Rafa may rotate after the performance against Real Madrid, but after tonight's showing I for one hope Southgate sticks with his hand and keeps Afonso Alves firmly on the bench.