THE cruel reality is that Middlesbrough failed to score for the 16th time this season when Burnley visited the Riverside Stadium, meaning a missed opportunity in the fight for survival in the Premier League.

A failure to overcome Burnley, winless away from home this season, means Boro have six-point gap to safety with seven games to go, four of which are against teams in the top five.

But regular Boro watchers should consider the differences under head coach Steve Agnew.

Ultimately Agnew could still not celebrate a first win since taking over from Aitor Karanka four matches ago, but they created chances and threatened to end a winless run which has now stretched to 14.

Boro are running out of time and the majority of supporters would have conceded defeat in the fight against relegation if they had been told beforehand that their team would not defeat Burnley, Hull City or Swansea.

There can’t be too many who have changed their mind either.

In all four matches Karanka’s former assistant has tried different things and has only been able to take two points from 12. This time he adopted wing backs and it almost paid off.

Chances remained few and far between in the opening period. The second half was a different story and Boro had enough opportunities to score. There have been plenty of times where they have been unable to conjure up a shot on target, this time they had five.

Was that the aim when Agnew opted for wing-backs and to play three at the back?

He said: “We're running out of full-backs to start with, which is the obvious thing. But I know the system inside out, I've worked with that for two or three years and difficulty was putting the information into the players in a meeting room but they carried out their instructions fantastically well, we have three really good centre-backs.

“To push the wing backs high was evident first half, we got crosses into the box, extra man in midfield, still stayed with two strikers, so it was very much working off a real solid shape but also a threat going forward.”

Stewart Downing and Antonio Barragan impressed down the flanks, providing plenty of support to the two-man forward line which started off as Rudy Gestede and Cristhian Stuani.

The midfield triumvirate of Adam Clayton, Adam Forshaw and Grant Leadbitter buzzed around and there was a fight and determination evident to make life difficult for a visiting midfield possessing the nuisance value of Joey Barton and Jeff Hendrick.

The solid base which Agnew spoke about stemmed from the effectiveness of the backline too, with Daniel Ayala and Ben Gibson strong either side of the recalled Bernardo Espinosa, who turned in one of his best displays since his arrival.

It was telling that goalkeeper Victor Valdes hardly had anything to do. On the one occasion he did he thwarted Sam Vokes, who also had another effort blocked by the arm of Bernardo. Robbie Brady also clipped the crossbar in the first half, but other than that Burnley found it hard to break the home side down.

Tom Heaton, in the Burnley goal, had not been too busy either. That changed when Agnew brought on Negredo just before the hour. The Spaniard was quick to force the keeper into a great low save from his volley.

Adama Traore, another substitute, made bursting runs from deep. Patrick Bamford, the third of the subs, had his own positive effect.

It looked like he would threaten before Michael Keane brought him down four minutes from time. He only received a yellow when a red would have been justified.

Downing’s free-kick was cleared off the line by Matt Lowton, who repeated his trick to prevent Ayala’s header from beating Heaton. Bamford looked bright and dangerous, reminiscent of his form during his first spell at the Riverside rather than since his £6m switch from Chelsea in January.

Agnew said: “Patrick, I knew when he went on he's capable of getting on the last man and balls in behind he's a threat and that's exactly what happened. From where I was stood I was disappointed with the decision, I thought he was in on goal, his first touch was terrific, it dropped on his right foot, he was in control of the ball, he was in a one-v-one with the goalkeeper.

“Patrick has had 18 months of not playing regularly for whichever team he's been at and he's been excellent in the last couple of weeks and he'll be a big player for us over the remainder of the season.”