TONY Pulis may have stressed the importance of at least one of his forwards hitting the 20-goal mark this season, but Ryan Shotton admits Middlesbrough’s defenders can also to do more to boost the Teessiders’ potentially damaging tally.

Boro possess the best defensive record in the Championship, but of the clubs in the top half of the table, only Swansea City have scored less than the modest total of 12 recorded by Pulis’ side in their opening ten games.

Aden Flint, George Friend and Daniel Ayala have weighed-in with three of those, but Shotton concedes Middlesbrough need to pose more of a threat from attacking set-pieces given the imposing nature of their giant back four.

Shotton insists they are close to finding that ‘final piece in the jigsaw’, but asked if it was a concern how the they had allowed Hull off the hook after failing to build on Britt Assombalonga’s fourth goal of the season, the defender admitted: “Yes. We’ve spoken about it a lot through this week, and we know exactly what we’ve been lacking.

“We’re not denying it and we’re not shying away from it. We’ve got to put it right on the pitch, and take advantage of the size of centre-halves we’ve got. We should be scoring and getting plenty of chances to score each week from set plays, and we haven’t done enough of that.”

Jarrod Bowen’s equalising penalty for the Tigers denied Boro top spot in the division as they dropped to third thanks to free-scoring West Bromwich Albion’s 3-2 victory at struggling Preston North End.

Shotton believes that Boro’s status among the division’s ‘big guns’ makes the task to regain Premier League status that bit more difficult. Just five points separate the top 14, and the 30-year-old added: “Everybody wants to beat you. Everybody works that 20 per cent harder and wants to do that job on you.”

He added: “Does it make it harder being near the top? Definitely. It’s our job to match that every week and come out fighting because we’ve got enough about us to make sure we compete with everybody every week.

“We don’t expect any game to be easy in this division, I’ve played at this level long enough to know that’s just not the case, especially with people fighting for every point there is available. You’ve got to turn up every week and work hard.”