Aitor Karanka: 'The shape wasn't the problem, the problem was we didn't play with the same intensity'

Aitor Karanka has questioned the 'mentality' of his players following the disappointing 2-1 defeat at home to Millwall

Aitor Karanka has questioned the “mentality” of his players.

Saturday’s 2-1 home loss to struggling Millwall has all but extinguished Boro’s faint hopes of pushing for a top six finish, leaving the club seven points adrift of sixth-placed Brighton with just three fixtures remaining.

In Karanka’s opinion, however, it was talk of a possible play-off bid that led indirectly to his side’s defeat at the weekend.

“What I have learned this season is that every time there has been talk of the possibility of the play-offs, we have not performed and we have lost the next match,” he said.

“We need to change that mentality.

“A lot of people were speaking about the play-off position and always when we have spoken about the play-off position everybody has been distracted.

“This is a mentality problem and it always happens at the same time - when we think we are better than we are, we lose the game.

“It is normal,” he added. “I was a player and when you win four games in a row the fifth game is Millwall, a team in the relegation position, and you are at home, you think ‘if we can beat Burnley away, it is easy to beat Millwall at home’.

“I told the players before the game that it will be our mistake to think like this but it happened.”

Boro went into the Millwall game on the back of four successive Championship wins and were firm favourites to extend that sequence to five ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Reading.

Unfortunately the Lions, who were third bottom going into the game, were worthy winners against opponents who looked a pale shadow of the team that recorded wins over Brighton, Derby, Birmingham and Burnley.

Millwall took the lead in the 16th minute through a Stefan Maierhofer header and the giant Austrian added a second on the half-hour mark, again through a headed finish.

Emmanuel Ledesma converted a direct free-kick in the 80th minute to pull one back, but the hosts were unable to force an equaliser.

Karanka admitted his side’s lacklustre performance had taken him by surprise.

“It’s difficult for me to understand how a team of 11 players who beat Burnley away couldn’t beat Millwall at home,” he said.

“It is difficult to understand because it is the same players and the same shape that we had at Burnley.

“We had everything in our hands to win the fifth game and we didn’t get it.”

On Saturday the Spaniard stuck with the 3-5-1-1 formation that worked well at Burnley but denied that was the reason his team conceded two poor goals from a defensive point of view.

“The shape wasn’t the problem, the problem was we didn’t play with the same intensity that we played with in the last four games,” he said.

“The problem is you can’t let the opposition go in 2-0 up at half-time.”