GIVEN that Middlesbrough had claimed seven victories in a row prior to Saturday’s defeat to Stoke City, it would be wrong to get too concerned about a result that was always going to come along eventually.

That said, however, Boro’s first setback since mid-November nevertheless highlighted concerns that Michael Carrick will have to be mindful of as he plots a course through the remainder of the season. On a day when a number of the home side’s players were marginally below-par, there was no one able to turn the game around through a moment or two of individual brilliance.

Last season, Boro had a handful of players capable of winning a game pretty much on their own. Chuba Akpom, with his 28 Championship goals that made him the division’s leading scorer. From January onwards, Cameron Archer, with the sharp-shooting skills that earned him a move to the Premier League this summer. Even Ryan Giles, the assist-king down the Teessiders’ left-hand side.

It can be argued that Boro’s transfer business this summer has resulted in a deeper and more rounded squad, and as the club’s 12 recent arrivals continue to bed in, so their match-winning abilities might well begin to come to the fore.

For now, though, this feels like a Boro squad that needs to be performing pretty much at its best in order to win matches because, if things are not quite clicking, there is not the smattering of individual brilliance that can transform a game like Saturday’s via a dynamic dribble or a moment of instinctive genius in the 18-yard box.

“Stoke are a good team, and if you are little bit off it, then you get punished in this league,” admitted Carrick. “It just shows the levels that it takes to win games and look like you’re winning well. We were just a little bit off it really, from the start you could just feel we weren’t quite there.

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“The boys know it. We’re all in it together. Too many of them just weren’t quite at the top of their game. It happens at times. Sometimes, you can get away with it, other times you come up against a good team who punish you. I can’t fault them for effort or trying to do the right things. It was just one of those days in the end.”

Carrick’s assessment is a fair one. This wasn’t a bad Boro display in the manner of some of the performances that were so worrying in the early weeks of the season, it was just lacking in some of the intensity and spark that helped facilitate the winning run that had turned the club’s season around.

Hayden Hackney’s drive and invention were missed at the heart of midfield, although Boro’s overall lack of control throughout the first half meant it was questionable whether the presence of the suspended midfielder would have made too much of a difference.

Stoke were the better, more purposeful side throughout the first half, with Boro’s defence looking surprisingly vulnerable as a series of opposition attacks pierced their backline. Then, when the Teessiders did get the ball and looked to attack themselves, passes went astray or poor decisions meant Stoke’s well-organised defensive unit was able to regroup and snuff out the danger.

“The feeling was that we just weren’t quiet at it to create something and get a spark,” said Carrick. “Sometimes, you’ve just got to hold your hands up and say, ‘We just weren’t quite at it today’.”

It didn’t help that Boro were behind from such an early stage, with the concession of a soft eighth-minute opener making their task all the more difficult.

Matt Crooks allowed Michael Rose to peel off him as Sead Haksabanovic swung over a corner from the right, and Seny Dieng will almost certainly feel he should have done better as he helped the centre-half’s header into the net. Yes, Rose was at point-blank range as he headed goalwards, but having got a decent hand to the ball, Dieng would have backed himself to have kept it out.

Stoke’s second goal arrived eight minutes before the break with a slick passing move ending with Daniel Johnson rolling the ball into Mehdi Leris’ path on the right of the box. Leris fired a clinical finish across Dieng and into the far bottom corner.

With his Boro team-mates struggling to construct any threatening attacking moves, Josh Coburn took it upon himself to try to haul his side back into the game, and after firing in a decent effort that was saved by Jack Bonham, the striker drilled in another long-range strike that rebounded off the crossbar.

That proved Boro’s best attacking moment, although Morgan Rogers deserves credit for at least providing a sense of urgency and ambition after he left the bench for the final half-hour. Matt Crooks has done well as a ‘number ten’ in recent weeks, but this was not one of his better days, and it would not be a surprise to see Rogers given a run-out in the role at Exeter on Tuesday evening. Similarly, it might be time to have a another look at Sammy Silvera given how ineffective Sam Greenwood was at the weekend.

“We’ve had a good spell, and I’m very hopeful that can continue,” reflected Carrick, whose side remain well placed given that they were sitting in 21st position at a similar stage of last season. “Moments in seasons happen, you can overthink it and analyse it, but sometimes you’ve just got to take what you can and move on. There’s no need to overthink or overkill it. It is what it is, and we move on pretty quickly.”