In general, there shouldn't be too much lost sleep over another early exit in the FA Cup for Middlesbrough. Defeat to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday sent Boro out of the competition at the third round stage for the third consecutive season under Michael Carrick.

To be fair, the last two years saw Boro given really tough draws against in-form Premier League sides. While this year’s draw gave Boro a far better chance of progression, changes still came for the game, and ultimately proved disruptive, with a wide appreciation that promotion from the Championship is Boro’s biggest priority this season.

In Carrick’s defence as far as intent to win the game is concerned, though he made seven changes for the game, the starting XI was still a strong one on paper and, with Blackburn also making five changes, should have been strong enough to win. After Andi Weimann scored what proved to be a 70th-minute winner, Carrick showed his desire to go for the win by introducing Hayden Hackney and Emmanuel Latte Lath when he could have left the duo on the bench.

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In truth, an early FA Cup exit isn't too much to worry about, even if that's a hard sell to the 18,000 or so Boro fans who paid their hard-earned money to go. It's the manner of it that's most concerning though. It’s ultimately the all too familiar storyline that emerged in a second defeat to Rovers in as many months, that creates the biggest concern for Boro moving forward. With 20 league games now remaining - and hopefully three more on top - success this season for Boro likely rests on Carrick solving a Boro problem he is well aware of.

“They’re a good team and they’re well-organised,” Carrick said after. “But we need to be better, particularly at breaking teams down. Listen, we’ve scored a lot of goals and we know we’re capable of doing that, but we have spells where we can look really, really good and then other spells where it becomes a bit harder to create the chances. We need to find a difference with that.”

It’s a bit of a worrying early-season trend that has re-emerged for Boro in recent weeks. It would be simple to just put it down to the number of changes made - and particularly that the whole forward four was shuffled for the game - but the fact is, breaking down compact defences, particularly at the Riverside where it happens most often, has been a struggle all season. Even in the recent late win at Hull, it was 93 minutes of little attacking conviction before finally finding that late goal, which just hasn't proven the catalyst we'd hoped.

We’d also hoped those early-season attacking woes had dissolved in November when Boro netted an impressive 18 goals across five games - or four in reality, with the carbon-copy league defeat to Blackburn sandwiched in between that otherwise fruitful Boro run.

It means that Carrick’s side are currently the second-highest scorers in the Championship with 43 goals in 26 games. But take that four-game period out of the equation and Boro’s record is 25 goals in 22 games, which is a little over one goal per game on average and more telling of their attacking struggles in the campaign overall, particularly against that low-block defence.

That Boro have a knack of gifting such soft goals at the other end - as they did again against Blackburn on Saturday - it makes the need to improve their goalscoring record all the more pressing if Boro are to make something of this season. That they are capable of scoring lots of goals on their day, and defending resolutely to keep clean sheets, only adds to the frustration of their inconsistency this term.

What’s certain is that, provided that too many injuries are avoided, Boro are unlikely to go into any games for the rest of this season with that being their midfield and attack in particular. Given that many of Saturday's starters have not been playing regularly, it has to be acknowledged as a disruptive factor in terms of performance - even if it doesn’t legislate for the rest of the majority of the season. Some of those players may be needed individually in some of the remaining 20 games though, and it’s fair to say very few played at a level that asked questions of the Boro boss with regard to their inclusion on a more regular basis.

But on the changes and the players given opportunities, Carrick insisted after: “I won’t be judging any boys on just one game. They’re a good team. They defend very well and they’re very organised and structured. They’re really disciplined in the way they go about it, and fair play to them for that.

“As a team, we just didn’t have that difference today, but I don’t want to be too critical of individuals. It’s not always easy to just come in and perform like that. It’s an experience we’ll have to learn from.”

Boro’s cup exploits are over for another season and it’s now all eyes on 20 huge games for Boro in which big improvements are needed. They currently sit in the top-six and have their play-off aspirations in their own hands as things stand. But the FA Cup defeat only further emphasised the deficiencies of the side that mean this hasn’t been a push for top-two that it could, and maybe should have been this season.

“We’ve got to accept we didn’t do enough to win today and we’re bitterly disappointed about that,” Carrick said in a conclusion that could fit too many games this season. “But we have to move on quickly and it’s all eyes on the league now. Clear the decks, all eyes on the league and focus on the run in.”