Strachan baffled by Boro form

Gordon Strachan was mystified after his Middlesbrough side slumped to yet another away defeat in the npower Championship, this time losing 3-1 at Derby. Boro are now languishing in 19th place in the table after suffering a fifth straight loss on their travels. They took the lead at Pride Park through Kris Boyd but Derby responded and, after Kris Commons had a penalty saved by Jason Steele, Shaun Barker equalised. Commons then made amends for his penalty miss to score two fine individual goals in the second half. Strachan said: "I look at the players and I think `can they try harder?', but I think physically they are trying. "Sometimes they actually try too hard and when they are doing that they play themselves out of position and leave some gaps and that's just the frustration at the moment. "You normally get six or seven playing well and you've got a great chance of winning the game, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong at the moment and we have to put our finger on that."

Source: PA

Source: PA