WHEN Stewart Downing fired an innocuous 84th-minute shot into the side netting on Saturday, he wasn't just trying to haul Middlesbrough back onto level terms against championship chasers Chelsea.

The second-half substitute might not have known it at the time, but his late effort proved crucial in ensuring that Boro would not reach the final whistle with one of the most damning statistics of them all.

On their own soil, in front of their own fans, Steve McClaren's side had failed to record a single shot up to that point.

Not a Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink piledriver or a Mark Viduka header in sight. Not even a Doriva 25-yarder flying high into the Riverside stands.

Hasselbaink was forced to wear Ugo Ehiogu's shirt in the second half because it was the only one available after his had become covered in blood.

He should have borrowed Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech's, because it certainly wasn't going to get dirty any other way.

Cech has only conceded one Premiership goal all season and Jose Mourinho's side are rightly being praised for their new-found defensive resilience.

But Chelsea's defenders will have few easier outings than their trip to the Riverside and, on a day when Hasselbaink and Bolo Zenden were supposed to be showing their former employers what they were missing, Boro's attackers were rendered worryingly impotent.

McClaren will point to mitigating factors. The Boro boss had asked his side to keep things tight before the break and they duly obliged, with Didier Drogba's drive against the crossbar the only moment of alarm in the first half.

Injury and illness also robbed the home side of Gaizka Mendieta and Szilard Nemeth - two players who might have made a difference to Boro's attacking threat.

But, ultimately, Saturday's 1-0 defeat underlined the key deficiencies which McClaren is going to have to overcome if his side are to mount a realistic push towards the top four.

Against the best defences in the land, Boro are simply too predictable and too confined when they break forward.

With Zenden and Ray Parlour occupying the wide positions on Saturday, all of the home side's play was channeled down a heavily congested central midfield area.

There was no width whatsoever and, even when Joseph Desire Job came on to replace the injured Parlour, Boro still found themselves trying to pick their way through a strip of field dominated by Chelsea blue.

Other teams - most notably Arsenal - have proved that out-and -out wingers are not integral to success.

But, while both Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg like to cut in from their respective flanks, the Gunners are able to rely on the searing pace of Thierry Henry or the creative vision of Dennis Bergkamp or Jose Antonio Reyes to unlock a packed defence.

Middlesbrough don't have either of those options. Viduka and Hasselbaink might be two of the most prolific goalscorers in the league, but they are somewhat old-fashioned strikers who do their best work in and around the box.

Their relative lack of pace means they are unable to latch onto speculative balls over the top and their immobility means they are unlikely to embark on a jinking run past three defenders, so they rely on a steady stream of crosses and through balls to fashion an opening.

That didn't come from the flanks against Chelsea and, with Juninho having left the Riverside for Celtic last month, there is no-one to pull the strings from behind the front two either.

Damien Duff might have looked somewhat ring rusty on his return from an injury-lay-off, but his willingness to hug the byline and whip in dangerous crosses for Drogba offered Chelsea an attacking outlet denied to Middlesbrough before the belated introduction of Downing.

McClaren has so far proved reluctant to hand Downing a starting berth but, while the youngster might not possess the same work ethic as Zenden, his superior crossing capability cannot be ignored forever.

In the continued absence of the 20-year-old, Boro will have to find some width in other ways and, again, they could do worse than looking to their latest opponents for direction.

With Russian midfielder Alexei Smertin tucking in at the weekend, some of Chelsea's most dangerous moments originated in the overlapping runs of right back Paolo Ferreira.

Boro's full-backs, on the other hand, rarely ventured beyond the halfway line with neither Queudrue nor Stuart Parnaby taking on their respective opponents.

If McClaren is to play without orthodox wingers then his full-backs are going to have to use the width that is created when the midfielders tuck in. Otherwise, Saturday's game might not be the last in which Boro take 80 minutes to record a shot at goal.

Read more about Middlesbrough here.