Tuesday night's 3-1 defeat at Derby County left the Teessiders just two points clear of the relegation zone with almost a fifth of the campaign gone, with the gap to league leaders QPR already a mammoth 13 points.
A record of five defeats from the opening nine matches has piled considerable pressure on Strachan, a manager who was charged with the explicit task of securing promotion when he was appointed as Gareth Southgate's successor last October.
Steve Gibson dismissed Southgate after he concluded the former Middlesbrough skipper was incapable of mounting a successful promotion charge, but the Boro chairman is not about to wield the axe for the second time in 12 months.
The Northern Echo has spoken to a senior club source who outlined the extent of the hierarchy's frustration at both results and performances so far this season, but categorically ruled out a change of manager at this stage.
Both Gibson and chief executive Keith Lamb are understood to be determined to give Strachan every opportunity to turn things around, with four of Boro's next six matches due to take place at the Riverside. Despite their inconsistencies, Strachan's side have lost just one of their last 16 home matches in the league.
The current situation is markedly different to the one that faced Boro's rulers at the same stage of last season, as festering frustrations over Southgate's managerial methodology had gradually built up over a period of several months.
That is not the case at the moment, with the Riverside hierarchy remaining fully confident in Strachan's ability to turn things around. However, there is also an acknowledgement that winning promotion this season is crucial, and an acceptance that a marked improvement is required soon.
Successive 3-1 away defeats at Watford and Derby have understandably dampened morale amongst players, management and supporters alike.
Strachan spoke of "fundamental" flaws in the wake of Tuesday's Pride Park reverse, and while the Scotsman has never attempted to shirk responsibility for the failings of the squad he has assembled, experienced centre-half Stephen McManus claims it is the players, not the manager, who have to accept the blame for this week's back-to-back defeats.
McManus is one of the senior figures in the Riverside dressing room, and the Scotland international insists the entire squad have to take a long, hard look at the inadequacies of their recent displays.
"The manager can only do so much," said McManus. "He can only lead you over that white line - then it's up to each and every player to do the business
"It's not just a set of four or five players (that are under-performing) - you can be a coward and say that it's that. But it's definitely not. It's a squad of 20 players.
"I'm not going to have anybody pointing the finger at three or four players and saying, 'They're not doing this or not doing that'. It's a team game and everybody has to take responsibility for what they're doing."
McManus helped lead a post-match inquest into Tuesday's defeat, but the 28-year-old admits Middlesbrough's players were left scratching their heads as they attempted to explain how a one-goal advantage had rapidly turned into a two-goal defeat.
Like at Vicarage Road on Saturday, Boro paid the price for a manic 20 minutes in which they conceded a trio of goals.
Similar spells also contributed to defeats against Ipswich and QPR this season, and with Boro's starting line-up containing considerable reserves of experience and commitment, it is proving hard to pinpoint the cause of such repeated collapses.
"We're sitting scratching our heads like everyone else to try to work out what's going wrong," said McManus. "We're working as hard as we possibly can to put it right.
"It's hard to talk about. We're a bunch of players that work incredibly hard every day to try to do the best that we possibly can, for the club, for the fans, for our team-mates and for the manager. We can't put our fingers on why it's not happening.
"We're doing something wrong because the results aren't going the way we would all hope for, but it's hard to say what it is. It's just so tough to talk about it to be honest, but we need to dig deeper than we've ever dug before to get ourselves back up there."
Source: Northern Echo
Source: Northern Echo