Strachan rues nightmare start

Under-pressure Middlesbrough boss Gordon Strachan bemoaned his side's dreadful start after their 3-1 Championship defeat to Watford at Vicarage Road. Promotion favourites Boro went into the game without a single goal on their travels in the league this season and went behind after only 17 seconds when David Wheater's poor passback gave Danny Graham a chance which he took with aplomb. "It's how you deal with the mistake and we didn't deal with the mistake," said Strachan. "We had plenty of time to come back from that and we didn't deal with that at all. We had a bad 20 minutes. We let that affect us, that 17 seconds. You can't, as a group, let something like that affect you, that's for sure." Asked why the mistake had affected his players, Strachan responded: "I have no idea. They [Watford] are an energetic team at the best of times and it gave them more energy. "As I say to you, it's something you have to deal with. We all go behind in games, whether it's early, late or whatever, but you still have to react to that and we didn't react well to that at all."

Source: PA

Source: PA