Boxing Day is known as the Day of Goodwill in South Africa but there was no goodwill for the Clarets yesterday as a goal from Emmanuel Ledesma gave the home sides all three points and left Burnley waiting for good news from elsewhere to avoid dropping down to fourth in the table.
It was a pleasant trip up, including a damn good pub stop at Kirby Sigston, under clear blue skies until we approached the land of smog which at least kept the temperature a little higher.
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| Junior Stanislas forced Shay Given into a late save |
There was total pandemonium in the stands where stewards were unable to cope with the almost 1,400 Burnley supporters with some of our fans asked to double up on seats, and even at kick off there were still many Clarets filling up the aisles as the yellow coats hit the panic buttons.
On the pitch and the bench there were two changes to that named for the win against Blackpool five days earlier. Ben Mee was out with a thigh problem which gave Danny Lafferty his first league start since the defeat at Brighton in August.
Lafferty's place on the bench went to Steven Hewitt where there was also one other change with goalkeeper Nick Liversedge replacing Alex Cisak who had gone down with illness.
All looked well for a couple of minutes as we took the game to our hosts, but things were soon to change and Middlesbrough were soon very much on top. Down the left hand side Albert Adomah had the better of Kieran Trippier though thankfully doing precious little with his opportunities and there was no improved fortune on the other side where Lafferty was having something of a nightmare on his return, continuously giving the ball away.
In truth we just couldn't get any sort of real foothold in the game and we had to contend with a wave of Middlesbrough attacks. Lukas Jutkiewicz headed one opportunity wide, Adomah missed the target when it looked easier to score and Ledesma had three attempts from distance, the first two of which went wide.
But he wasn't to be denied and his third attempt beat Tom Heaton with a long ranger. It came from a foul on Jason Shackell by Marvin Emnes which referee Mark Clattenburg missed, one of very few errors to be fair from the Premier League official. They quickly got the ball to Ledesma but Heaton should have dealt with it only to be beaten as the ball bounced just in front of him.
We did come back and forced Shay Given into two saves. He tipped over from both Sam Vokes and then Danny Ings. The save from Vokes was the better of the two but the flag had gone up for offside; the save from Ings was one you would expect him to save but it was spectacular as he tipped the ball over.
We could have no complaints at going in behind at half time and there wasn't much improvement after the break. Heaton kept it at 1-0 with a good save and less than 12 minutes into the second half we replaced the disappointing Michael Kightly with Junior Stanislas.
The substitute did get one good ball into the box and just a few minutes from the end he forced a good save out of Given.
The second change, with just 16 minutes remaining, saw the introduction of Keith Treacy for Scott Arfield.
Playing down the right, he started to cause the Middlesbrough defence some real problems. Their better players were in the back four, none more so than Jonathan Woodgate and George Friend, but Treacy got the better of Friend to fire in a cross for Dean Marney. It was just too high for the midfielder to get enough contact on the ball.
Hope had all but gone when we went into stoppage time but there was one last effort for the Clarets as Treacy fired in a long range effort that went just wide of the left hand post.
We hadn't done enough and there could be no complaints at the result against a Middlesbrough team that was far from impressive although they were outstanding defensively.
We looked as though we were going to slip to third with QPR still to play but one former Claret Martin Paterson got the better of another in Lee Grant to end Derby's run of wins. And when Little Billy's Forest beat QPR in the evening kick off it did at least leave us in second place.
I thought it was probably our most disappointing performance of the season and yet we were still only beaten by one shot that our goalkeeper should have done better with and one shot that wouldn't have come about had the referee given the free kick.
Sean Dyche pointed to the stats. He said that we dominated possession. We did, but it was not enough on the day and it meant a pointless return on Boxing Day for the first time since we went down at home to Barnsley five years ago.
The teams were;
Middlesbrough: Shay Given, Jozsef Varga, Daniel Ayala (Ben Gibson 85), Jonathan Woodgate, George Friend, Albert Adomah, Richard Smallwood, Dean Whitehead, Emmanuel Ledesma, Marvin Emnes (Grant Leadbitter 58), Lukas Jutkiewicz (Curtis Main 69). Subs not used: Dimitrios Konstantopoulos, Rhys Williams, Luke Williams, Jacob Butterfield.
Yellow Card: Jozsef Varga.
Burnley: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Danny Lafferty, Scott Arfield (Keith Treacy 76), Dean Marney, David Jones, Michael Kightly (Junior Stanislas 57), Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs not used: Nick Liversedge, Kevin Long, David Edgar, Brian Stock, Steven Hewitt.
Yellow Cards: David Jones, Scott Arfield.
Referee: Mark Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear).
Attendance: 20,689 (including 1,387 Clarets).