Michael Carrick takes great comfort from Middlesbrough FC's performance against Hull City - but fans do not

Although "bitterly disappointed" with a 2-1 defeat at home to Hull City, Carrick said he was pleased with his side's performance. The supporters were not, with boos at full-time.

The Boro manager was right to say his team was comfortably the better team in the first half but they only had Emmanuel Latte Lath's goal to show for it and when a flurry of Tigers' substitutions turned the tide after the hour, his side was unable to respond.

You would not have known they had lost, though, by Carrick's positive demeanour afterwards.

"I thought we played ever so wel," said the midfielderl. "Against a good team, we gave them next to nothing, played some really good football, looked dangerous and had so many opportunities.

"We need to be that bit more ruthless but I thought we gave them hardly anything in the game. We didn't let them have much. I thought the second goal would come but we just didn't quite have that quality with our last pass or finish to make it count.

"I thought we pressed fantastically well. I don't think they had a spell in the game where they opened us up, which they can do because they're a good team. I thought we pressed well from the front, blocked the spaces we wanted to block, defended high up the pitch for the most part.

"I thought we controlled the ball and looked really dangerous. We made a couple of tweaks tonight which I thought worked. I felt really good and I was really proud of the boys for the way it was going in the second half, then we suffer that blow."

If Carrick's assessment of the performance was a touch on the generous side, it only made the result harder for him.

"I'd have been bitterly disappointed with a draw after that to be honest with all the good things that I saw in the game," he commented. "It's one of them things.

"It's easy to say but I do think there's a case of (needing to be more ruthless).

"We had enough, definitely more than enough to score at least one or two more in terms of the opportunities and we could have created even more with the space we created in and around the box. Ultimately that is the difference with results.

"When you do that many good things what we felt we did in the game, it's disappointing you don't get what you think you deserve."