Robson blast for diabolical Middlesbrough

Last updated : 14 February 2011 By Northern Echo

Boro were subjected to a second straight defeat in the Championship despite leading 3-1 on the hour mark?

But the manner in which a relatively inexperienced Middlesbrough backline caved in to Swansea's late resurgence is hardly ideal preparation for a difficult month.

With just five points separating Middlesbrough from the bottom three, Tony Mowbray's men head in to a run of fixtures against promotion contenders Millwall, QPR, Nottingham Forest and Reading with their confidence battered.

And Robson, back after injury and captain in the absence of Matthew Bates, feels the dressing room can't afford to dwell on Saturday's sorry performance.

"It was schoolboy from us. The goals we lost, it was mistakes," said Robson. "When you make mistakes like we did you will be punished.

"We could have scored more. It was end to end stuff. As I said, when we were 3-1 up we were not under pressure but in the last 20 minutes we were diabolical. You can't afford to play like that at home. We should have killed the game off.

"You learn from mistakes. It is true that you learn more from being beaten than you do from winning. As every individual can learn from this, we need to do better.

"I am not going to name names, football is football. There were 11 of us out there and all of us have to take the blame. We all went home and looked at ourselves, looking to make sure we improve for the next game. It's not going to get any easier."

Following the departure of David Wheater in January and the hamstring problem which has sidelined Bates for six weeks, Mowbray had to shuffle his pack at the Riverside Stadium.

It meant that a back four boasting just 116 starts between them for the club had to play together for the first time in front of a goalkeeper, Jason Steele, who is just 25 matches in to his first season as a regular.

"We have young lads in defence but it is not about them," said Robson. "It's a team effort and we have to stand up and say it was not good enough. We were 3-1 up against one of the best Championship teams. That showed we can do it.

"Some of these young lads have been playing extremely well. You can't just blame them. It is a team game and for me, I am looking at the next game coming. We will hurt teams going forward and I just wish the next game was tomorrow to put it right."

Mowbray's problem is that he is extremely limited in what he can do to freshen things up and he knows he has to work with what he has got.

He has the option of bringing in German defender Maxi Haas at Millwall, but that is hardly the perfect place to field a new foreign signing still settling in to life in the North-East following his switch from Bayern Munich.

The Middlesbrough manager did bring on Moroccan new-boy Merouane Zemmama for the final quarter of an hour in a bid to add extra creativity, but he could need time to adapt to the Championship's style of football.

"The Championship is what it is," said Robson. "There are some very physical sides in this league. We need to learn as a team to calm down and regroup.

"We panicked a wee bit when we conceded the penalty after the hour. You can't do that in football and half decent teams will punish you. That's down to us. We have got to get out of sight when we are 3-1 up. We got a bit jittery after the penalty. We can't do that."

Source: Northern Echo

Source: Northern Echo