GARRY MONK suffered his first defeat at the Riverside Stadium as Middlesbrough manager and then warned his players to learn from the “harsh lesson” served up by Norwich City.

For the third Championship game in a row Boro conceded first and were faced with an uphill struggle to deliver a positive result.

But, unlike against Queens Park Rangers ten days ago when they won before claiming a point at Fulham on Saturday, this time Middlesbrough could not conjure up enough in the final third to avoid defeat.

Instead Monk’s men have slipped out of the play-off places again and sit eight points behind the division’s pace-setters Cardiff City going into this weekend’s visit of Brentford to Teesside.

And the Boro boss will be hammering home the message over the next few days that his players can’t afford to concede first against the Bees, having watched Dael Fry’s rare error lead to James Maddison curling in the winner inside 12 minutes against the Canaries.

Monk said: “I’m frustrated, of course. We all are, the players are as well. We gifted them the goal so paid the price. Lessons need to be learned.

“We have done that in other games and we have shown the character and determination to get back in but you can’t continually do that, where we gift a goal to the opposition.

“You saw for the rest of the game where Norwich had ten behind the ball on their six-yard box and we knew that was coming. Realistically we should have scored but too many times we didn’t deliver the right ball and that right pass in the final third.

“The effort and commitment is always there, but we can’t keep gifting a head start. We have done that recently but too many times we have made mistakes. It’s not like teams are coming and opening us up, we can’t do that continually.”

Middlesbrough’s players were clearly frustrated as they trudged off the pitch, having set the target of making the Riverside a fortress this season. Having lost for the first time on home soil under Monk’s watch, he is now keen to avoid repeats.

“This is 100 per cent a lesson,” he said. “We can’t gift teams a goal from our own mistakes. That can easily be avoided. The players’ effort levels were there, we haven’t got time to feel sorry for ourselves. Plenty football to be played. It’s a harsh lesson but we have to take it on board quickly.

“It was our worst nightmare to gift them a goal and we did that. We should have equalised with some of our chances. We had a lack of a quality, a ball into the box and it didn’t come off for us. It was a very frustrating night.”

On a positive note Martin Braithwaite returned to action after hamstring trouble for the first time since the opening day defeat to Wolves.

The £9m man finished as part of a four-man forward line, all strikers, who finished the match as Middlesbrough attempted to claw themselves back into the game – and he was asked afterwards if that £36m-plus attacking line-up should have had enough to break down Norwich.

Monk said: “It’s all on paper. Money means nothing. It’s about what you do on the pitch. We should have taken our chances. We didn’t do enough with that final pass. That’s what we have to work on. A team will score first here again. We have to be better at it. We didn’t deserve to lose this game though.”