GARRY MONK admits Middlesbrough are going through a “frustrating period”, but claims his side did “a lot of good things” during their 1-0 home defeat to Cardiff City.

Boro slumped to a fifth successive game without a victory as Joe Ralls’ 84th-minute penalty dumped them into the bottom half of the Championship table.

The Teessiders were punished after Adama Traore leapt into a senseless tackle in his own penalty area, and Monk claims his side are paying a high price whenever they do anything wrong at the moment.

The Boro boss has watched his side win just four of their 13 league games to date, but remains confident things will turn as long as everyone sticks together.

A chorus of boos rang around the Riverside at the final whistle of today’s game, but while Monk understands the supporters’ frustrations, he is urging them to keep faith with his players.

“It’s clearly a frustrating period for us,” said the Boro boss. “But I thought it was 100 per cent a harsh result.

“We understand the frustrations. We’re frustrated ourselves as fans and players, and we understand the fans’ frustration. But what’s very clear is that we stick together. We need their support, and you can see how committed the players are to what we are doing.

“When you’re in a frustrating period, and you see the end result, it’s very easy to lose focus on what the players have actually done very well. If you look at the last couple of games, we’ve done a lot of things very well.

“If you look at today, there were a lot of good things out there. Unfortunately, we’re just in a period where we’re getting punished for any error. That’s the period we’re in, but we’ll stick together and work hard, and know that the good things we’re doing are going to get us through this spell and make sure we come out the other side with some positive results.”

As well as scoring from the spot, Cardiff also came close when Sol Bamba’s effort was cleared off the line by Britt Assombalonga and Junior Hoilett headed Nathaniel Mendez-Laing’s cross narrowly wide of the target.

Boro threatened at the start of the second half when Stewart Downing had two decent efforts deflected narrowly off target, but Cardiff goalkeeper Neil Etheridge was only really called into action once to save from Martin Braithwaite.

Nevertheless, Monk was happy with much of his side’s play and claims they were looking the likelier winners before Traore conceded the spot-kick.

“We knew going into the game that it wasn’t going to be a game with lots of chances, especially with the way that Cardiff set up,” he said. “They’re defensively very good and are very well organised, so we knew that we were going to have to show patience.

“I think we did that, and as the second half went on, we were in the ascendancy and if anyone was going to be winning, it was going to be us in that 20 minutes before the penalty.

“If anything, we felt we could be the ones to create that situation to get a goal. It was a really harsh result on ourselves, but that’s kind of the position we’re in.”