TONY MOWBRAY had a postmatch heart-to-heart with his players after Middlesbrough’s seven-match unbeaten run came to an abrupt end with a 3-1 defeat at Burnley last night.

The Boro boss wanted to express his feelings and hear what his squad thought after a sorry first half collapse at Turf Moor in which his team went three down inside the opening 37 minutes.

Andrew Taylor grabbed a late consolation for Boro, who must wait a little longer before they can officially start to plan for another season in the Championship.

Despite sitting ten points clear of the bottom three with four matches remaining, Mowbray is desperate to see his group of players finish the campaign strongly ahead of an uncertain summer.

“It was more a heart-toheart than an inquest,” said Mowbray, whose side now travel to Hull on Saturday before the visit of Coventry on Easter Monday. “What goes on in the dressing room stays in there.

“We need a reaction at the weekend and a performance we are used to seeing. Burnley were the better team for everyone to see here. The way we started was not good enough, we let two set plays in but we kept giving corners away.

“I have tried to dig to the bottom of it. It’s easy for me and other people to suggest that teams switch of when they reach the 50 points mark. That is too easy an excuse.

We didn’t cope with what they threw at us and that is it.”

Mowbray has instilled greater confidence and improved performances in a squad that was dropping alarmingly towards the League One trapdoor when he took over, but did not want to criticise his players too much.

With eyes on pushing for promotion to the Premier League next season, he was disappointed at the manner in which Boro conceded goals to Jay Rodriguez, Wade Elliott and Michael Duff.

Mowbray said: “I don’t want to be over critical because they deserve fantastic credit for the fighting spirit over the last couple of months.

“But if we have ambitions of going in to the Premier League then every game is high quality in there. We have to be at it in every game, or every mistake you are punished at that level.

“But we are looking for positivity in to every game and I would like to think a defeat like this will help us do that.”

Mowbray tried to adopt a lone striker system at Turf Moor in the hope that it would counteract Burnley’s usual style of a five-man midfield.

Instead, though, the change to the way Boro usually play backfired.

But Mowbray said: “I thought we could have had a decent night with five in midfield, it didn’t pan out that way.

“It was not the shape or the organisation that was to blame though, it was more the desire that we let cheap goals in.

“There are times when we have not played well and we have stuck in there and got a result, like at Sheffield United.

We didn’t do that here and it cost us.”

Mowbray’s determination to hold an open and frank air of views with his squad last night arrived on the same day chairman Steve Gibson revealed he intends to hold an investigation in to this season’s failing in the summer.

Gibson said: “When the season is over there will be an inquest. We will look at where we have gone wrong and where we have gone right and people will be held responsible.

We will look at what we need to do to move forward.

“The team will continue to be resourceful, but there will definitely be major changes at this club. We are not saying what we will do, but we will look at the squad.”

􀁧 Arsene Wenger has challenged his Arsenal squad to give “absolutely every drop of blood” to stay in contention for the Barclays Premier League title with victory at arch-rivals Tottenham tonight.

The Gunners now find themselves seven points behind Manchester United, who drew 0-0 at Newcastle.