GARRY MONK can’t panic at this stage, nor does he need to, even if there are growing concerns among the fans that an automatic promotion place is edging away from Middlesbrough already.

There have only been 12 matches, so there are still 34 games remaining for Monk’s Middlesbrough to close the seven-point gap to the top two.

That should be nothing for a squad boasting the Championship experience and attacking talent this Middlesbrough squad does, which is why this Saturday’s visit of Cardiff City could be significant for the season ahead.

Monk’s Middlesbrough are in need of a lift. They might have only lost one of their last ten matches, but a failure to win a league game since mid-September has brought some anxiety into their play.

For a team that prided itself on keeping clean sheets, Middlesbrough have started to concede goals far too frequently and goalkeeper Darren Randolph has been beaten eight times in the last five matches.

A failure to keep things tight has been the main issue, so what has changed?

During the last few matches, Middlesbrough have had to field a back four with at least one different player in it. A team’s backline tends to be the one area of the pitch where managers would prefer to have continuity.

That certainly helped earlier in the season when they kept clean sheets more regularly and Monk would have liked to have had his back four more settled than it is now.

Going into this Saturday’s game, there could well be a change or two at the back. Will Daniel Ayala retain his place after earning a recall on Saturday? Will George Friend be back in the mix after replacing Fabio da Silva at Barnsley through injury?

When Middlesbrough had their two promotion chasing seasons under Aitor Karanka, his defence pretty much picked itself. Ahead of Dimi Konstantopoulos there was Ayala, Ben Gibson and Friend, with Tomas Kalas and Emilio Nsue battling it out to play right-back.

Monk will be striving to have such a stable backline, but for that to happen he needs players to find form and rhythm. Then the mistakes will be less frequent.

There’s no point supporters harking back to Karanka’s time in charge. Monk is attempting to make Middlesbrough more attractive to watch with an array of attacking talent.

That clearly takes time, particularly given the huge changes to personnel over the summer and the players he inherited were more familiar with sitting tight and hitting teams on the break under the previous boss.

But after 12 matches Monk knows he needs things to start ticking soon. A mid-table position, in touch with the play-off places, is a healthy enough area to be, but Middlesbrough need to start collecting more wins to get the confidence really flowing.

Perhaps with the exception of the victory at Bolton, there has not really been an occasion when you have felt Monk has been completely satisfied with his team’s overall display.

There are still too many question marks hanging around his team selections before every game, certainly not helped by incidents such as Adama Traore turning up late for the team bus.

Monk’s Middlesbrough have shown greater character than they have in previous years when falling behind to fight back and get a result. They are also more threatening in the final third, which is what he has been pushing for.

The next phase is to make Middlesbrough more consistent over the 90 minutes rather than in spells of a game.

That could still happen sooner rather than later because the ability is within the squad at his disposal, it will be hoped the test against a team sitting second on Saturday provides the perfect platform for Middlesbrough’s first season under Monk to really get going.