DAVID Wagner slammed his side's "horrendous" defending and decision making in the heavy defeat to Middlesbrough - and said Norwich "lost their heads" at the Riverside

The Norwich City boss wasn't surprised by Boro's attacking threat, saying "everybody is aware of it", but what did surprise him was his side's shocking defensive display.

The Canaries made a string of defensive errors as Boro ran riot to climb to third in the Championship table, while the visitors now face a fight to force their way into the top six. They're only one point behind sixth-placed Blackburn but have played two more games than Rovers.

Wagner said his side made it "far too easy" for Boro as they slipped to their heaviest defeat of the season.

He was angry that the game wasn't stopped in the build-up to Boro's second goal when Sam McCallum was down injured and felt Norwich should have had a second half penalty when Ryan Giles mistimed a challenge on Max Aarons, but made no excuses for the defeat.

He said: "It was very disappointing. I think we made a lot of horrendous mistakes in front of both goals. We had some good opportunities at 0-0 and at 1-0 down we had an opportunity. We have to take them because goals change games.

"Then we've conceded the second one where Sam McCallum was out of the game. Afterwards to be totally honest we lost our head.

"We took a free-kick when we shouldn't have done, we took a quick throw-in when we shouldn't have done and conceded two further goals. I was very disappointed because you can't make mistakes like we've done today.

"If you make them mistakes you need to stay calm and stay in the game, and we didn't do that.

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"We made it far too easy for Boro with the individual mistakes and we didn't take our chances. That was the story of the game. If you produce mistakes like we've done today and you don't take chances, then you can't complain about the penalty or that you were unlucky."

The hammering of Norwich was the third time Boro have scored four or more goals in their last five home games.

Wagner said: "At the end of the day I wasn't surprised by their offensive threat. I think everybody is aware of it. I was more surprised by us and how poorly we defended."