He said: "The goals were disappointing. If we'd have gone there and someone had scored with a fantastic piece of skill that's different. But we didn't mark from a throw in and one of our centre-halves went missing in the box."Apart from that we could argue that we might have been the better side."We knew that we'd have to work hard without the ball because their two wingers are good.
For me, Adam Johnson is probably the stand-out player I've seen this season."But overall I thought that we did really well. But with the amount of possession we had we should have caused them more problems. We've got to be a bit brighter and a bit quicker."I couldn't fault the application of the side. We went there and tried to be brave.
We knew that kicking the ball from back to front would be a complete waste of time against the two Middlesbrough centre-halves, so we tried not to do that."I thought that we caused Middlesbrough problems but giving goals away in this league makes it difficult to get back and we would have had to score three goals away from home to win."Most Championship teams, if you give them a goal, are used to the pressure and can withstand it and it doesn't faze them, so it is difficult.
"As I said I thought that they all did really well but there are times when you just want that extra bit of class."But for that you are going to have to pay millions of pounds and we haven't got millions of pounds so you nurture the ones you've got and try and support them."I thought that 90 per cent of what they did was excellent.
"Going a goal up early on allowed them to sit in and defend, which they do very well, and hit you on the counter."It was up to us to force the game, but in this division if you lose your discipline and organisation, then you are on the end of a potential hiding."