SO when does a stuttering start become a cause for serious concern? According to Garry Monk, Middlesbrough are “doing a lot of things right” and “heading in the right direction”. Their skipper, Grant Leadbitter, admits the club are in a “sticky situation”, but insists it is still much too early for alarm.

Yet as the boos rained down from the Riverside stands at the end of another disjointed home performance, it felt as though we were witnessing something we had seen before.

In this very week in October 2010, Gordon Strachan was sacked with his Middlesbrough side having picked up 11 points from their opening 13 games. Three years on, and it was Tony Mowbray getting the bullet in late October. His team claimed 15 points from their first 13 matches and were in 15th position when Steve Gibson decided to act.

The current Boro team are outperforming both of those sides, but only just. Saturday’s defeat to a Cardiff City team worth a fraction of the £40m-plus that was lavished on the Middlesbrough squad this summer left the Teessiders in the bottom half of the table, with a return of 17 points from their 13 outings.

They are closer to the relegation positions than the automatic promotion places, having failed to win any of their last five games. They have picked up one point from the last available nine at the Riverside, and have claimed just four league wins all season.

More worryingly, there is no obvious sign of an imminent upturn.

That is not to suggest that Monk’s position should be in jeopardy, or to imply that promotion is no longer possible. The Championship has a history of being unpredictable, and having overseen major changes to personnel, tactics and footballing philosophy in the summer, it was always going to take time for Monk’s new outlook to bed in.

Yet four months into the new Riverside era, and it remains extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly what Monk is trying to achieve. Does he wants his team to play a possession-based style, or is he looking for them to be more direct?

Should his players be pressing energetically when they do not have the ball, or dropping deep to try to hit teams on the break? Is he an advocate of an Aitor Karanka-style 4-2-3-1 formation, with plenty of midfield protection for the defence?

Or would he prefer to play 4-3-3 and put the onus more on the attack? On Saturday, it was impossible to tell.

Flexibility can be a useful asset, and Monk’s ongoing tendency to chop and change his starting line-up is partly a reflection of the failings of those who find themselves in the team. Frankly, no one is playing well enough to make themselves un-droppable.

Yet what does is say about defensive cohesion when Daniel Ayala isn’t even in the squad for the best part of a month, yet is suddenly parachuted into the starting line-up for two games in a row?

Ayala looked a bag of nerves for much of the weekend’s game, twice rolling a ten-yard pass straight into touch and almost setting up a Cardiff opener with a casual back-pass that played Darren Randolph into trouble.

Given the way his season has gone so far, though, he could be forgiven for not knowing whether he is coming or going.

Prior to the Barnsley game, Monk claimed it was “impossible” to have a best XI in football anymore. The former Swansea and Leeds boss places a huge amount of stock in the importance of the squad, and repeatedly shies away from singling out any individual for praise or criticism.

His attitude to squad inclusivity is a refreshing change from the autocratic approach espoused by Karanka, which was starkly laid bare by Stewart Downing in his weekend interview in this newspaper.

Yet watching Saturday’s game, it was impossible not to draw unflattering comparisons between the clarity of purpose within Neil Warnock’s Cardiff side and the lack of cohesion within the Boro ranks. Warnock’s teams always play a certain way. They are physical, uncompromising and uncomplicated in the way they move the ball.

Sol Bamba might not be everyone’s idea of a cultured centre-half, but he was a totemic presence for Cardiff as he broke up Boro attacks, charged upfield for set-pieces and constantly organised those around him. He knew exactly what he was in the team to do. How many Middlesbrough players could put their hand on their heart and say the same?

“At the minute, it’s not good enough, but it’s still early days in the season,” said Leadbitter. “We’re just 13 games in out of more than 40. There are plenty of points to play for. This is our tough time of the season, but we’ll come through it.

“We have to stay calm. In the seasons when we were promoted and got to the play-offs, there were still little spells where we were losing or struggling to win games. The whole football club has to stay calm.”

Be that as it may, it has to be a worry that it took Boro 72 minutes to force Neil Etheridge into a save, and even that was a routine stop that saw the Cardiff goalkeeper claim Martin Braithwaite’s flicked volley.

Boro might well have been behind at that stage, but Danny Ward shot straight at Randolph in the early stages and Britt Assombalonga hacked Bamba’s goalbound effort off the line midway through the second half.

Cardiff’s winner came from the penalty spot with six minutes left, with Joe Ralls converting after Adama Traore hacked down Nathaniel Mendez-Laing in the box.

Seven days after he was dropped for missing the bus to Barnsley, Traore’s timing was badly awry again.