SLUMPED in his seat in the press room of Selhurst Park, Aitor Karanka summed it up best. “We looked like we didn’t know how important this game was,” admitted the increasingly embattled head coach. Of all the criticisms that can be levelled at Middlesbrough as they drift inexorably towards a relegation that is beginning to look more likely by the week, it is hard to think of a more damning statement than that.

Crystal Palace knew how important Saturday’s game was. Whether it was the home side’s players tearing here, there and everywhere as they established a position of dominance in the first half, or manager Sam Allardyce as he frantically urged his side to push out in the closing stages, Palace had the air of a team all too aware of the precariousness of their position.

Middlesbrough? It is almost as if Karanka and his players are sleepwalking their way back to the Championship. Urgency? Only when they went 1-0 down, and even then their attacking efforts were stilted and predictable. Passion? Not exactly, especially in the early stages, when a Palace side that had conceded four goals in their previous home outing were not even threatened. Willing to take a risk? Sadly, conservatism seems to be part of Boro’s DNA.

Rarely can a side so desperate for a victory have been as meek and supine as this. For the ninth successive league game, they failed to take all three points, for the third successive league game, they failed to score. No Premier League side has scored fewer goals, no Premier League side has created fewer chances.

“It’s difficult to know if the players understand (the seriousness of the situation they are in),” said Karanka. “But it’s difficult when you don’t have a lot of players who have played in the Premier League.

“We know, but the only way to keep going is to stay together. We don’t have experience in this situation, but I’m sure we will survive.”

Karanka’s optimism is commendable, but the Spaniard has to take his share of the blame for yet another tame surrender. He might accept the need to start winning when he speaks before a game, but when it comes to a match-day, his selection and management hardly scream of adventure.

Saturday’s decision to revert to a five-man defence became inevitable when George Friend was withdrawn on Friday, although Karanka’s subsequent comments about the manner of the defender’s latest injury setback – “the doctor told me he couldn’t train because he had pain in his knee when I thought the problem was in his calf” – are alarming. Not for the first time, divisions within the camp are becoming evident.

Karanka felt he had no choice but to change formation, but why was he still playing with five at the back when his team were chasing the game in the second half? Why did it take until the 79th minute to introduce Adama Traore, his most dangerous creative force? Why was Alvaro Negredo replaced at half-time, only for Rudy Gestede to offer up more of the same in the second half? And why is Patrick Bamford not even making the bench less than four weeks after Karanka persuaded his board to shell out £6m to sign him?

Plenty of questions, precious few answers. Karanka insists it would be wrong to change “the style” that enabled Boro to win promotion last season. But what if that style has resulted in just four victories from 26 league games? Isn’t it madness to assume more of the same will lead to a series of radically-changed results?

“My message after this game would be the same message I always give,” said Karanka. “We can’t forget where we were three years ago, and now we are outside the relegation position and in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. We have to believe in this group of players.”

Like Boro’s attacking tactics, even that line is becoming embarrassingly easy to predict. What happened three years ago is irrelevant, just as last season’s tactical approach means little when it comes to trying to succeed in the top-flight.

Boro need to discover a way of winning in the Premier League, and at the moment, they are repeatedly coming up short. They don’t get enough players into the penalty area, don’t record enough shots on target and don’t have the ability to change tactics halfway through a game. As a result, once they go a goal behind, the referee might as well blow the final whistle.

Surely it is time for Karanka to release the shackles a little, particularly when his side are facing opponents as defensively insecure as Palace? The Teessiders saw more of the ball in the second half, and began to push their opponents back towards their own box, yet they still played with three centre-halves and kept two defensive midfielders on the field. Gestede, like Negredo before him, was conspicuously lacking in support.

So while their second-half performance might have been an improvement on what went before, their only real chance saw Cristhian Stuani receive Adam Forshaw’s headed knock-down and swivel to drill in a shot that was saved by Wayne Hennessey. Either side of that, their attacking, such as it was, came to nothing, save for an 84th-minute header that Ben Gibson directed well wide.

Palace were always more threatening, largely thanks to their willingness to commit a large number of players forward and the ability of both Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend to create problems with the ball at their feet.

Patrick van Aanholt effectively played as a left winger rather than a full-back, and after Christian Benteke went close with two first-half headers, the former Sunderland defender settled things in the 34th minute.

Yohan Cabaye flicked Daniel Ayala’s attempted clearance into his path, and van Aanholt guided a right-footed strike into the bottom corner.

The Dutchman had also scored against Boro for Sunderland, and his two goals in those two games are bettered by only two Boro players over the whole of the season.

That is another statistic to set the alarm bells ringing, yet Karanka remains optimistic. “If I don’t believe we will get out of this, I go home,” he said. Never mind going home, the fear is that Boro are heading back to the second tier.