JONNY HOWSON admits Middlesbrough’s players have to use the two-week international break to salvage their season, and has urged his team-mates “not to feel sorry for themselves” despite Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Aston Villa having resulted in their worst Championship run for six years.

Boro suffered a third second-tier defeat in a row for the first time since 2013 as they were outclassed at Villa Park, with goals from Anwar El Ghazi, John McGinn and Albert Adomah lifting Villa to within a point of their opponents.

Tony Pulis’ side continue to occupy a play-off position, but with nine games to play, they now find themselves within four points of the six teams immediately below them in the table.

They will return to action against league leaders Norwich City a week on Saturday with automatic promotion out of the question, but while Howson accepts the last nine days have been a major disappointment, he insists there is no point stewing on what has gone. Instead, Boro’s players have to use the two-week hiatus to clear their heads and train their focus on what has effectively become a nine-game race to make the play-offs.

“It’s got to be about drawing a line under things and moving on now,” said Howson, who reverted to his former position in midfield at Villa Park after spending most of the last month playing at right wing-back. “These games are gone now, we can’t affect anything that’s happened in the past.

“Okay, we can have a look and see where we can improve, but that’s where we are. There’s no point feeling sorry for yourself. We’re disappointed and frustrated because we’re an honest group and we all care and want to do well for the football club, and get it back to where it should be. We’ll give everything we’ve possibly got, and get our focus on Norwich.

“We’re obviously disappointed at what’s gone on. Two or three weeks ago, if we had put a run together, who knows what might have happened in terms of the top two? That’s obviously gone now, so our focus has to be to get in the play-offs.

“We understand the frustrations, we’re just as frustrated as players and as a team. We’ve got an honest group and we’ll do everything we can to put that right and get back to what we’ve been doing for large parts of the season.”

That means a return to the levels of defensive resolve that enabled Boro to keep 13 Championship clean sheets before Christmas. Since the turn of the year, the Teessiders have conceded in nine of their 12 league games, a weakness that is exacerbated by their ongoing struggles to find the net at the other end.

Pulis named an extremely defensive line-up at Villa Park, but Boro’s hopes of grinding out a result disappeared as they conceded two sloppy goals in the space of 17 minutes at the end of the first half.

George Friend gave the ball away in the build-up to El Ghazi’s opener, while John Obi Mikel failed to halt Jack Grealish as the Villa midfielder teed up McGinn on the stroke of half-time, and Howson accepts a collective lack of defensive discipline is proving damaging.

“We probably contributed to what went wrong,” he said. “You can’t do that to good teams. Certainly away from home, we need to be solid and stay in the game. That’s disappointing, to give a foot up to a team that have good players anyway.

“If you look at the majority of our games this season, it’s tended to be the same way – being solid, being hard to beat, and maybe punishing the opposition in the same way we’ve been punished in the last week.

“It’s disappointing, and when you make mistakes, good individuals and good teams will take those chances. You saw that here. We’re an honest group, we know where we’ve done wrong, and we’ll give it everything we’ve got to turn it around and give it a really good shot.”

With Saturday’s setback having followed hot on the heels of home defeats to Brentford and Preston, the international break has probably come at a good time for Pulis and his squad.

There will be a brief opportunity to get away from things before preparations begin for the Norwich game, and while there should not really be an issue in terms of the physical wellbeing of Boro’s players, the mental strain of the relentless Championship programme can begin to take its toll.

“It’ll be nice to have a bit of a break,” said Howson. “This is the longest part of the season we have. At the start of the season, when you play three or four games and then have a break, you probably don’t need it. I believe like anything in life, sometimes you need to switch off, take yourself away from things and refresh. It’s nice sometimes.

“It’s a mental thing really. With eight or nine games to go, all the teams should be fit. If you’re not fit at this stage, you might as well go home. So it becomes more of a mental thing. It’s like anything in life, if you do too much of something, you need a bit of a break sometimes.”

Pulis agrees, and intends to use the next two weeks to rebuild the confidence of a squad that still finds itself in a play-off position despite recent disappointments.

“I think this (the break) has come along at a very good time,” he said. “The lads were feeling a bit flat after the Brentford and Preston games, and this gives them a week to clear their heads. Then we’ll get going again.”