AFTER the events of last May, Middlesbrough can be forgiven for wanting to give Wembley a miss this season.

They don’t want to be returning to the national stadium for the Championship play-off final, with automatic promotion the overriding ambition for the remainder of the season, and after Saturday’s defeat to Burnley, they don’t have to concern themselves with a protracted battle to reach the FA Cup final either.

No fixture congestion to stretch the squad to its limits, no distractions to deflect attention away from the pursuit of a place in the Premier League.

Players and head coach might have been saying all the right things on Saturday evening, talking of their disappointment at what was only a second third-round exit in the last five years and stressing their frustration at squandering a lead for the first time this season, but their pleas felt half-hearted at best.

If things go to plan in the next four months, the second weekend in January will not even merit a footnote in the story of the season.

“Some of the other teams will have more games than us now, but I don’t really see things that way,” countered Daniel Ayala. “As a squad we want to win every single game, and we haven’t been able to do that.

“This definitely matters. We want to do well, and this was a competition we wanted to have a run in. We wanted to get as far as we could in this competition, regardless of what that might have meant for the league. We have been to places like Man United and Man City in the last couple of seasons, and we wanted to give the fans a game like that again because it is what they deserve.”

Maybe so, but the lack of any great disappointment or anger from the stands at the final whistle suggests that even the most fervent of Middlesbrough supporters would happily trade a one-off trip to Old Trafford at the end of the month for a schedule packed with Premier League venues next season.

Exiting the FA Cup at an early stage does not guarantee a safe passage to the top-flight of course, but the history books suggest that when it comes to the battle at the top of the Championship, it is generally a case of the less additional games the better.

In the last decade, more than half of the teams promoted from the Championship exited the FA Cup at the third-round stage. Of the ten sides to achieve automatic promotion, only one – West Brom in 2008 – progressed beyond round five.

That strongly suggests Boro are better off out of the competition, so with crucial trips to Brentford and Bristol City coming up in the next five days, the key question to emerge from Saturday’s setback is not whether the Teessiders should be mourning their FA Cup departure, it is whether there will be any spill-over from a rare bad day when they head to Griffin Park tomorrow.

“The danger is that this could carry over into the next game, and that is something we have to fight against,” said Ayala. “That is why we wanted to win this game and keep a clean sheet – because we wanted to keep in that positive mindset.

“It could have a different kind of effect now, but we just have to make sure we’re fully concentrated on Tuesday and that we go down to Brentford and win.”

In truth, the impact of Saturday’s defeat should be limited. It is not as though Boro dramatically underperformed against a side just four places below them in the table, indeed had they converted their copious first-half chances, they would have been out of sight at the break.

As it was, their only goal came as Diego Fabbrini stabbed home after Tom Heaton had made a fine save to deny George Friend, and therefore the two defensive lapses that followed proved extremely costly.

Rouwen Hennings was granted the freedom of the 18-yard box as he converted Sam Vokes’ cross in first-half stoppage time, and after the Boro defence failed to deal with a routine corner in the 72nd minute, Stephen Ward swivelled on the edge of the six-yard box to fire home a first-time volley.

Aitor Karanka made seven changes to his starting line-up – more proof of where priorities lie – and the fringe players that came back into the side enjoyed mixed fortunes.

Fabbrini was bright and effective throughout, and while the Italian has fallen from favour slightly in the last few months, he remains a valuable asset in the ‘number ten’ role. Similarly, while Fernando Amorebieta has found his first-team chances limited in recent weeks, he remains a reliable source of defensive cover. Karanka will be hoping the injury that forced the 30-year-old off is nothing serious.

On a less positive note, Carlos de Pena was a peripheral presence once again, and while Karanka no doubt feels compelled to give the Uruguayan a chance after shelling out £2.6m to sign him in the summer, it is hard to see how the midfielder is superior to Adam Reach, Mustapha Carayol or even Yanic Wildschut, who have all been deemed surplus to requirements.

David Nugent’s first-half miss smacked of either a striker low on confidence or short of match practice, but he will surely come good in the games that remain. Those games are now guaranteed to be league ones, and that is no bad thing. The glory of promotion trumps the magic of the FA Cup.