Gordon Strachan is at a loss to explain Middlesbrough's form on the road as the side slumped to a 3-1 defeat at Derby. Boro are now languishing in 19th place in the table after suffering a fifth straight away defeat.

Strachan said: "I look at the players and I think 'can they try harder?', but I think physically they are trying.

"Sometimes they actually try too hard and when they're doing that they play themselves out of position and leave some gaps and that's just the frustration at the moment.

"You've got to keep a hold of your frustrations sometimes, or you'll lose your shape and some players were trying to close down too quickly and got picked off. The goal just before half-time, if we'd have sat back with not some much space in between defence and midfield we'd have been okay.

"It's okay closing down but there's got to be an end product to it.

"You normally get six or seven playing well and you've got a great chance of winning the game, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong at the moment and we have to put our finger on that."