Watford 3-1 Middlesbrough: Boro boss Strachan frustrated by errors

Under-pressure Middlesbrough boss Gordon Strachan bemoaned his side's dreadful start after their 3-1 defeat to Watford at Vicarage Road.

Promotion favourites Boro went into the game without a single goal on their travels in the league this season and went behind after only 17 seconds when David Wheater's poor passback put in Danny Graham.

Jordon Mutch's excellent half volley doubled Watford's lead before Graham added to Boro's misery by putting Watford 3-0 up after only 20 minutes.

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A late own goal from Adrian Mariappa proved to be a mere consolation and Strachan admitted it was going to be an uphill battle after conceding so early.

"It's how you deal with the mistake and we didn't deal with the mistake," said Strachan. "We had plenty of time to come back from that and we didn't deal with that at all. We had a bad 20 minutes. We let that affect us, that 17 seconds. You can't, as a group, let something like that affect you, that's for sure."

Asked why the mistake had affected his players, Strachan responded: "I have no idea. They (Watford) are an energetic team at the best of times and it gave them more energy.

"As I say to you, it's something you have to deal with. We all go behind in games, whether it's early, late or whatever, but you still have to react to that and we didn't react well to that at all.

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"Funnily enough in between the goals, we had some smashing efforts ourselves. The game wasn't a big, big problem as such, but they made our back four defend and got three goals."

Watford: Loach, Hodson, Martin Taylor, Mariappa, Doyley, Eustace, Cowie, Buckley (McGinn 65), Mutch, Graham (Walker 85), Sordell (Deeney 73). Unused substitutes: Gilmartin, Bryan, Whichelow, Oshodi.

Middlesbrough: Steele, Bates (McMahon 55), Wheater, McManus, Arca, Tavares, Halliday (Boyd 46), O'Neil, Robson, McDonald, Lita (Kink 66). Unused substitutes: Coyne, Bailey, Luke Williams, Hines.

Referee: Fred Graham (Essex).

Man of the match: Danny Graham.

For stats and a full report from the match follow the link below.

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