AGNEW: DON’T BLAME DEFEAT ON NEW SHAPE
BOURNEMOUTH 4 MIDDLESBROUGH 0: BORO HEAD INTO TEES-WEAR DERBY LOW ON MORALE
Middlesbrough head into Wednesday night’s Tees-Wear derby against Sunderland at their lowest ebb of the entire season.
Second-bottom Boro’s miserable Premier League run – no wins since December and only four all campaign – continued with a 4-0 pummeling at Bournemouth on Saturday.
Josh King gave the Cherries the perfect start, finishing off good work from Marc Pugh and Charlie Daniels to open the scoring in just the second minute.
Boro never recovered and further goals from Benik Afobe, Pugh and Daniels had them reeling by the end.
Boss Steve Agnew said: “We weren’t happy with the start of the game, and that’s where we lost it,” he said.
“To concede two goals like we did was naïve and poor, and it gave us a mountain to climb.
“We changed shape going into the game, but the result is not about the shape and systems. It’s about defending and in those areas we need to be better.
Next up is a battle of the bottom two at home to Sunderland and Agnew insisted: “The players have fighting spirit and will continue to fight.
“We’re all very disappointed but we have to dust ourselves down.
“We’ve got a huge challenge ahead but it’s still alive. We have Sunderland and we have to go into the game as positive as we can.”
Boro lost midfielder Marten de Roon to injury and saw Gaston Ramirez stupidly sent off for two yellow cards in the first 20 minutes.
Their performance at the Vitality Stadium, in which they were uncharacteristically poor in defence, left them in 19th, and their five remaining fixtures are against Sunderland, Manchester City,
Bouremouth manager Eddie Howe, though, insists their Premier League status is not yet secure, and urged them to surpass last season’s points total of 42.
“We’ve still got more points to get before we can say (we’re safe),” he said. “We should be looking upwards, without getting ahead of ourselves, and seeing where we can finish.
“We want to surpass last season’s total. That was always our aim. We’re closing in on that total. If we can play like we did (on Saturday) we’ll be fine.
“It was great to see our fluency with the ball. That hasn’t been there in the last couple of games.”
Goalscorer Daniels added: “We knew that we needed to start aggressively because it was a very important game for us and for them as well.
“We wanted to be on the front foot and we did that right from the off. After they had a man sent off, it was a very professional performance.