A FRUSTRATED Steve McClaren last night illustrated that Middlesbrough's ineffectual forward play was the major factor in his side's failure to continue a recent turnaround in fortunes.

Everton's third win of the season lifted them out of the relegation zone and ended Boro's hopes of continuing a three match winning streak in all competitions.

James Beattie's header after 15 minutes proved to be the only difference between the two teams at Goodison Park yesterday as the Teessiders' stop-start campaign continued to stutter.

Boro have taken just 15 points from their first 12 Premiership matches - form which sees them languishing in the lower reaches of the table.

McClaren identified a deficiency in creativity between midfield and attack as the main reason.

"We have scored seven goals this week and we had opportunities here to create more, but the quality was not as good as it has been," said the Boro boss, who was hoping to build on last Saturday's 4-1 triumph over Manchester United.

"It was one of those games. Sometimes you get games like that. There was nothing wrong with the performance. But we lacked a bit of ruthlessness and drive to get that goal.

"I said to the players at half-time that 'this is a great opportunity to get a result'.

"But in the end we are very, very disappointed because we didn't deserve the result we got.

"We conceded a goal from a corner and never looked like conceding another. We controlled the game but it was in the final third where we lacked that final pass and final bit of quality."

Neither Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink nor Aiyegbeni Yakubu - given the chance to shine from the start up front - could find the crucial goal that would have cancelled out Beattie's opener.

Mark Viduka, who found himself on the bench despite two goals against Dnipro in the UEFA Cup on Thursday, could also do little to prevent Boro slipping to another defeat on Merseyside.

McClaren stood by his decision not to start with Viduka and defended his decision to take off Yakubu instead of playing with three strikers in a bid to score.

"Yakubu was not injured. I felt Mark Viduka had done well here in the Carling Cup win and he also got two goals in midweek," said McClaren, whose strikers have 15 goals between them this season.

"It was important to freshen things up front. That is the way we do things with the strikers we have got."

He added: "We had won three in a week but one of them was in the Carling Cup, one in Europe and one in the Premiership. They are the fronts we are fighting on.

"We worked hard to go on an unbeaten run and now we have to recover during the break and come back fresh for the two consecutive league home games (against Fulham and West Brom) which follow."

Despite ending the search for a win on a Sunday after European games on a Thursday at Aston Villa earlier in the season, Boro have still won only one on the Sabbath since their UEFA Cup debut last season.

McClaren believes that particular hoodoo is forgotten about.

"Last season we struggled. We only won one in ten games following any of our European matches but we have worked hard to deal with that," he said.

"We won at Villa and got a draw at Wigan, which now looks a good result. We would have had a draw at West Ham but for the linesman's decision to gift them a goal.

"You could say this is our first defeat after Europe this season. But most of all I would be worried if the performance was not right. You can't ask anymore than to come to a place like this and control the game."