STEWART DOWNING admits Middlesbrough’s players deserve all the criticism that has come their way in the wake of last night’s Carabao Cup humiliation at the hands of Burton Albion – and has warned his team-mates things will only get worse if they start feeling sorry for themselves.

Boro’s players were booed off the field as they crashed out of the League Cup at the quarter-final stage, with their failure to beat League One opposition extending their winless run to six games.

Having been at the top of the Championship table as recently as late October, Tony Pulis’ side now find themselves nine points adrift of league leaders Leeds United and eight points behind second-placed Norwich City as they head into the festive spell.

Discontent is mounting, with last night’s attendance of just over 17,000 suggesting that a large number of Middlesbrough fans are voting with their feet as results and performances nose-dive.

Downing has encountered plenty of difficult spells during more than a decade as a Boro player, and fully understands why the supporters were so keen to vent their fury yesterday. Things could be equally fraught when Boro’s players return to the Riverside on Boxing Day, and Downing accepts he and his team-mates will have to handle whatever is thrown their way.

“You’ve got to expect the criticism,” said the midfielder. “As players, you know what to expect. Standards are high, and you’re expected to win. If I’d come as a fan, then I’d be disappointed we lost.

“There’s no point sulking, that’s not going to help. We’ve got a lot of experienced players in the dressing room, and they’ll have to stand up and help the young lads through.

“We’re in a time when stick will be thrown, blame, whatever it is, and you have to come through that. It happens. Teams go through bad spells, and it’s how you react.

“We’ve generally bounced back quite well from defeats. This is a big blow for us because we were expected to win, but we haven’t got time to dwell on it because we have four games in a really short space of time now. We need to bounce back as quick as possible because we need some big results.”

Boro’s form had been holding up reasonably well prior to the start of this month, with November’s back-to-back league wins over Wigan Athletic and Brentford having lifted them back into the top two.

However, the lack of creativity that has been apparent throughout the campaign has become even more acute – Boro have now scored just five goals in their last nine home outings – and they have also started leaking the kind of sloppy goals they were not conceding in the early stages of the season.

Solving the goalscoring issue might require some astute transfer business in January, although it is surely time to give Britt Assombalonga another run in his preferred position of centre-forward rather than continuing to field the £15m striker as either a winger or substitute.

However, Downing claims the current bad run is a result of diminishing confidence rather than any fundamental faults within the squad.

“We’ve certainly got the quality,” he said. “It’s maybe just a bit of a confidence dent. When you lose a couple of games, it happens. All teams have it. The confidence can go. But the manager is stressing we have good players here, we just need to show it.

“At the start of the season, it wasn’t a problem, and the same players are here, the same squad. It shows we can play and win, it’s just how you bounce back from the bad results.

“Maybe the confidence is a little bit down. We’re getting a bit edgy, and the crowd is getting a bit edgy, which is understandable because they’re expecting results. It’s disappointing.

“We had a massive chance to get to a semi-final – it doesn’t really get any bigger or better than that – and we didn’t need any motivating. The lads were up, we trained well, and I thought we created some good stuff in the first half. But goals win you games, and we’re not putting the ball in the back of the net.”

Boro’s next chance to return to winning ways comes at Reading this weekend, and on paper at least, their trip to the Madejski Stadium looks reasonably inviting.

Reading have won just one of their last nine matches, and are only out of the relegation zone on goal difference, but having lost to a Burton side sitting in the bottom half of League One, the Teessiders can hardly take anything for granted.

“We’re looking at winnable games, but that was a winnable game and we lost,” said Downing. “We need to be winning games because, if we want to be promoted, then we have to start winning again.

“We’ve got good players and they just have to believe they’re good players. When confidence is down and you’re getting a bit of stick from the fans, that’s when you have to stand up. You have to be prepared to take the ball, want the ball. That’s when you see the mark of good players.

“It’s alright when you’re 2-0 up and the sun’s out – this is when you have to roll your sleeves up and be counted. That’s every one of us.”