Aitor Karanka was less than impressed with his team's first half performance at Arsenal.
The Boro boss believes his players may have been guilty of believing their own publicity following fine cup displays at Liverpool and Manchester City.
Karanka's men never recovered from conceding two goals inside three first half minutes just before the half hour mark of a one-side fifth round FA Cup tie.
Olivier Giroud grabbed both, sweeping home a Kieran Gibbs cross to open the scoring and lashing in Alexis Sanchez's corner from close-range to double the hosts' lead.
There's no doubt Boro were second best in the opening 45 minutes, failing to recapture the spirit of their Capital One Cup tie at Anfield and FA Cup fourth round upset at the Etihad.
Karanka said: “We haven't played with the intensity we normally play with, we were disorganised.
“If you go to the pitch to play Arsenal and you are not 100% this kind of thing can happen.
“I think they thought it was going to be easy because they played very well against Manchester City and they played very well against Liverpool and I think they thought it was going to be another game like City.
“A lot of people thought after our games against Manchester City and Liverpool that it would easy at Arsenal but there is miles and miles between Middlesbrough and Arsenal.
“The second half was better and it was more comfortable for us.”
To their credit, Boro never gave up but it took a fine display from keeper Tomas Mejias to deny Arsenal further goals.
The 5,280 fans in the away end almost had something to celebrate deep into stoppage time but a Kike Garcia header from Ryan Fredericks' cross crashed onto the far post.
Karanka has told his players that their objective now is to make sure they return to the Emirates, Etihad and Anfield to play league fixtures as soon as possible.
“Now the Capital One is passed, the FA Cup is passed and we have a lot of very good memories and now the league is the main thing,” he said.
“The best thing that we can take from this experience is to have this kind of experience.
“It is amazing to play at Anfield, it's amazing to play at the Etihad, it's amazing to play at the Emirates, so we know if we want to play here next season or the following season we have to work hard because everyone knows how difficult the league is.
“We have to keep going, we have had a bad day against Arsenal but we haven't dropped any points.
Boro, who slipped down to second in the Championship table following Bournemouth's draw with Huddersfield, are next in action at Birmingham on Wednesday.
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