BEN GIBSON admits Middlesbrough strayed too far from Aitor Karanka’s preferred tactical template as they laboured to a 1-1 draw with Blackpool on Tuesday night.

Despite facing opponents rooted to the foot of the Championship table, Boro’s players produced one of their most uninspired performances of the season as they were arguably fortunate to claim even a point.

Unlike in recent matches, most notably during the wins over Huddersfield and Brentford and in the narrow Capital One Cup defeat at Liverpool, the Teessiders were slow to close down their opponents and press in the opposition’s half of the field, and equally lethargic when it came to constructing their own attacks.

Karanka is understood to have vented his frustrations in the dressing room after the game, and Gibson accepts there is a need for a much higher tempo and enhanced sense of urgency when Boro entertain another of the Championship’s strugglers, Fulham, at the weekend.

“We made it hard work (on Tuesday), and we’ve only got ourselves to blame,” said Gibson, who got the nod to start alongside Daniel Ayala after sitting out last weekend’s draw at Charlton. “I don’t think we played at a high enough tempo.

“We didn’t cause them enough problems and probably sat a little bit too deep. We should have squeezed them higher and pinned them back into their half, and that’s something we’ll have to think about (for the weekend).

“They’re things we’ve been doing on a regular basis this season, and that’s why we’ve been fairly successful. It’s something we have to get back to because that’s the style the gaffer wants us to play. For some reason, we didn’t do it against Blackpool.”

Having come so close to winning at Anfield last week, Boro carried a sense of momentum and positivity into last weekend’s game at The Valley. The goalless draw against Charlton sapped some of that, although some missed chances and Albert Adomah’s late dismissal meant there were extenuating circumstances to the result.

Tuesday’s draw came with no such caveats attached, and while Boro remain just three points off top spot after the majority of promotion contenders also dropped points on Tuesday, the smattering of boos that accompanied the final whistle against Blackpool accentuated the sense of an opportunity missed.

“It brought everyone back down to earth, but that’s football,” said Gibson. “You can’t enjoy being in a good moment too much because, in football, you know that smack around the face is just around the corner.

“That was Tuesday night. The positive was that we didn’t lose the game, and we might have lost it last season. We took a point, and we’ll go to Saturday to try to beat Fulham.”

Fulham started the season suffering a chronic hangover from May’s relegation, but the dismissal of Felix Magath appears to have reenergised a Cottagers squad that still features the likes of Scott Parker, Bryan Ruiz and Hugo Rodallega, not to mention the attacking talents of long-term Boro target Ross McCormack.

“Blackpool showed you can’t take anything for granted in this league, and we certainly won’t be doing that ahead of Fulham,” said Gibson. “They were always going to improve and move up the league.

“Once they got their first win, you would expect them to go on a bit of a run. They’ve got Premier League players still, so it’ll be a tough, hard game. But it’ll be one that we’re going into determined to improve on what happened in the week. We’ll try to employ the tactics that the gaffer wants, which wasn’t really the case against Blackpool.”