TONY PULIS believes Middlesbrough were trying too hard to rediscover their goalscoring touch, as they suffered defeat at Queens Park Rangers.

A lacklustre performance in awful conditions at Loftus Road leaves Boro four games without a win, with only three goals scored.

The pairing of Britt Assombalonga and Jordan Hugill failed to make much of an impact, although a George Saville equaliser was the bright spot of a grim afternoon.

Boro boss Pulis admitted his side have to take the initiative again.

He said: “We’re better off when we’re really solid, we’ve gone away from that over the last couple of weeks.

“We’re trying to chase the goals, I think the players have almost reacted to the fact we haven’t been scoring goals, and in their desperation to do so we’ve lost our shape a little bit.

“Playing Britt and Jordan together didn’t work brilliantly, I don’t think we had one shot on goal first half. We’ve got to keep going and we need the breaks.

“We talked to them about the conditions and being right on the front foot in the first half. We knew QPR would sit back and they got quick players up front – they’ll counter-attack.

“We got caught twice making square passes. George Friend lost the ball for their goal deep in our half.

“Of course we are concerned at the gap with the top, but we’ve got to start worrying about winning games ourselves and not what other people are doing.”

Although frustrated at the defeat, Pulis was also upset with official Oliver Langford, who he felt missed some decisions.

He added: “We have an incident in their box from a corner, where Assombalonga is actually rugby-tackled down. And the referee is five yards away – I’ve just been in and seen him – and doesn’t give it.

“We have a booking second half for one of our players bringing one of theirs down on the counter – fine, I haven’t got a problem. But over the far side in the second half one of our players gets dragged down on the counter but isn’t booked.

“But I don’t want to take anything away from QPR, and from our performance in respect of that. We should do better. But it’s got to be an even playing field, and the referee has got to look at those and we’ll see what he says.”

Pulis sees the Carabao Cup quarter final at home to Burton tomorrow as a good chance to rebound.

He said: “We’ve got a big game on Tuesday, we’re desperate to win that game and we go again.”

Assombalonga and Saville were the two changes made from the game with Blackburn, replacing Ashley Fletcher and the suspended Mo Besic respectively.

Even so, Boro started off slowly and were given an early taste of the QPR threat.

Nahki Wells was able to spin past Assombalonga in the box and curled a third-minute effort just wide of Darren Randolph.

Rather than tightening up at the back, the visitors looked even more flat-footed when they conceded a minute later.

Jake Bidwell was given far too much space on the left flank, and his low cross into the area found Pawel Wszolek, who poked home past the Boro shot-stopper.

To their credit, the visitors started to force their way into the contest, earning a number of free-kicks and corners that ultimately came to nothing.

However, they lacked the bite of their opponents, which was almost proved again on the half-hour mark when Wells put another effort just wide of the post.

The best Boro effort of the half fell to Friend on 34 minutes, who made an impressive solo run from deep but fired his effort high and wide.

Half-time was needed, and after the restart there was a marked improvement in play, with a lot more drive and urgency shown.

It took five minutes for this pressure to pay off. A cross by Ryan Shotton was only half-cleared by QPR defender Darnell Furlong.

This fell invitingly into the path of Saville, who was able to shoot low first time past Rangers keeper Joe Lumley.

The goal should have seen more from Boro, yet it was QPR who struck next, on the hour mark.

Wszolek was allowed to pull back to the impressive Wells in the area, who curled another effort past Randolph – but this time more successfully.

After going behind for a second time, Pulis brought on Lewis Wing, Marcus Tavernier and Fletcher.

However, none of the substitutions seemed to galvanise Boro as much as both Pulis and the 2,260 travelling supporters would have hoped for.