Hayden Hackney's positive Leeds takeaway despite 'big gap' Middlesbrough admission

MIDDLESBROUGH are now playing catch-up in the race for automatic promotion but Hayden Hackney insists it's too early to give up on the top two.

Tuesday night's defeat at Elland Road left Boro trailing Leeds United by 10 points, with the top four now threatening to pull away from Michael Carrick's side.

Carrick said he wasn't concerned by the standings at this stage of the season and while Hackney admits the the gap to the top is now "big", the midfielder has also stressed the need for calm.

For all Hackney admitted Boro weren't good enough in the first half at Elland Road, he echoed his head coach in claiming the players will take confidence from the games against Burnley and Leeds - but says it's now crucial to get back to winning ways against Millwall on Saturday.

“In the last two, I think we have shown we can compete with the highest teams," said Hackney.

"Although the result hasn’t gone for us today, you can still look at it and think if we put our chances away in the second half it could have been a different game.

"It’s now a big gap to the top two, but there are loads of games left and we just have to focus on the next game, and try and win as many games as possible.

"We’ll see where we finish at the end. We’ll go away from here, take the positives, have a look and see what we can do better and then go again on Saturday.”

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Boro made life difficult for themselves at Leeds in a below-par first half. They wrestled back control and drew level after the break, only to then concede a soft second goal before the hosts secured the victory in stoppage time.

Hackney said: “Losing any game, it does hurt. Especially this one because I think we got ourselves right back in the game.

"At half-time we spoke about controlling the game a bit more but we got sloppy at times and it let them back in.

"First half we did struggle at times to get into the game. We tried to quiet the crowd down a little early doors but didn’t manage and we spoke about that at half-time and trying to get more control of the game.

"We did that and got ourselves back into it, but the goals cost us. We actually had chances to put ourselves ahead. We tried to keep going and keep moving the ball forward, we just got a bit sloppy."