Strikers not just to blame, says McClaren

McClaren has been unable to work out his best front pairing in recent months and against Birmingham he changed the partnership once again.

January buys Malcolm Christie and Michael Ricketts both started together for the first time since the Tyne-Tees derby and both had unproductive afternoons at St Andrews.

But McClaren, who admits his side need to become more ruthless in front of goal, insists all of his players should be held accountable.

"I am very unhappy with our lack of goals," said McClaren, whose side have scored just 11 goals on their Premiership travels this season.

"But it's a team thing, we have performed well at home, but not found the consistency away.

"It does not take Einstein to work out why we haven't performed away this season, that's through a lack of goals.

"But I will stress again, it's not just the strikers. At Birmingham we did not look as solid as we have been this season and you can't just blame the defence for that. It was a blip."

McClaren changed tack by switching his preferred flat-back four to a three-man backline - with wing-backs pushing down the flanks.

But after half-time - with Boro trailing 2-0 - the Boro boss reverted back to a four-man defence.

However, McClaren insists he will not think twice about switching formations again for different games.

He said: "Sometimes we have done that, we have changed to that formation and got a good result.

"We did it at Sunderland, we did it at Liverpool and we will do it again if we think it will get us results."

For the second game running - they also lost to West Ham on Easter Monday - McClaren was left frustrated with his players' performances.

"It was by the far the worst performance of the season," said McClaren, who did not allow his defeated squad to talk to the waiting press after the match.

"We have to just dust ourselves down, pick ourselves up and be ready for next Saturday's match with Tottenham."

Read more about Middlesbrough here.