WHILE there was an air of disappointment to the way Middlesbrough lost their pre-season friendly against Braga, manager Chris Wilder is confident that there is plenty to take away from their week in Portugal.

Boro ended their week away with a 3-0 loss to Europa League semi finalists Braga before they head back to UK soil today.

They have two more friendly games against Morecambe and Marseille before their season opening game against West Brom in a fortnight’s time.

The Boro boss has openly been on record in the past to say he’s not a fan of losing football matches and there was no exception to that in Lagos. “I didn’t like the way that we played tonight. We didn’t play well” he said.

“You can hear the guys (supporters) and we want to reward them because they’ve been fabulous tonight and got right behind the team right the way through but you are going to have a disappointing night or day through the season so even though it is pre-season, I want them to hurt a little bit.

“I don’t want them to be happy, I’m not happy. We’ve not played well against a good side. It’s been pretty comfortable for them and it’s been a tough evening for us. But there are no points lost or won in pre-season so I didn’t enjoy it and the players know that but it’s how you recover and I’m sure we will recover. We’ll get on with it and move forward.”

With pre-season preparations well underway, the balancing act is fine tuning the players performances along with getting them physically up to scratch for the beginning of the season which was a balance that couldn’t be struck last night.

The result is ultimately irrelevant but Wilder was quick to explain the reasons for their scoreline as he continued: “The shape of Braga, it’s a quite difficult shape to play against. In the system we play, probably the most difficult system to play against.

“I could have worked four or five days on working against their shape but we’ve got to add some many other things into pre-season.

“There are so many other things you have to work on, most importantly, from intensity and fitness level. One of the good things about tonight was the majority of those boys have had 90 minutes under their belt.

“As I said to them, we could have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday on their shape and we would have been better out of possession, in possession but we’ve got to get the balance right as well and all the things that we want to do in pre-season so for me, it’s been a really good week.”

Boro will fly home today as they continue to work on preparations for the new season ahead.