TONY Mowbray last night admitted West Ham's extensive Premier League experience had played a key role in his side's 2-0 defeat at the Riverside.

Goals at the start and end of the game from Frederic Piquionne and Carlton Cole condemned Middlesbrough to their first home defeat of the season and left the Teessiders eight points adrift of the automatic promotion places.

Both Piquionne and Cole played for the Hammers as they dropped out of the top-flight last season, and the likes of Kevin Nolan, Mark Noble and Robert Green were also influential figures as the visitors strengthened their grip on a top-two place.

Middlesbrough boast a number of players with Premier League experience, but more than half of last night's starting line-up have never played in the top-flight and Mowbray feels that when they face a side like West Ham, Boro occasionally suffer from a lack of more seasoned stars.

“I would think that all of West Ham's players have played in the Premier League and that obviously helps,” said the Boro boss. “I'm not sure how many Premier League appearances we have in our team, but I can't imagine it's all that many.

“People like Matthew (Bates) and Tony (McMahon) have probably played one or two, but there aren't too many more footballers with Premier League experience in our team.

“At times, I think that showed this evening. They had a lot of Premier League knowledge in their team and I think you could feel that.”

West Ham's victory was their fourth on the bounce, and Sam Allardyce's side already look extremely strong contenders for an automatic promotion place.

Boro have now lost to both the Hammers and league leaders Southampton, but Mowbray does not feel there is a vast gulf separating his side from the top two.

It could be argued that the Teessiders were outclassed at St Mary's, but that was never the case last night with Boro paying a heavy price for a lack of composure in front of goal. Scott McDonald missed a golden opportunity in the first half, while Faris Haroun, Marvin Emnes and Merouane Zemmama all failed to find the target with decent half-chances.

“There's a disappointment because I don't think we did enough,” said Mowbray, who was deprived of the services of thigh injury victim Barry Robson. “We started very poorly and found ourselves a goal down. We recovered okay and were the ones that looked like scoring in the latter stages of the first half, yet I always felt as though they were reasonably comfortable.

“What are the reasons for that? I don't know. We had a number of chances without really having glaring opportunities. We needed a goal to give the crowd a lift, but it never came and it felt as though we were going to struggle to break them down the longer the game went on. We finished with five or six strikers on the pitch, but still didn't really threaten their goal.”

There was drama before kick-off as Jason Steele appeared to tweak a muscle in the warm-up. Mowbray does not name a goalkeeper on the Middlesbrough bench, and while Danny Coyne was helping to put Steele through his paces, the Teessiders would have had to seek permission from West Ham to parachute him into the starting line-up. As it happened, that was not necessary as Steele recovered sufficiently to take his place in the team.

“It looked for a time like he might not be fit, but he came through okay,” said Mowbray. “In the end, I don't think he had that much to do and he was fine throughout the game.”