Michael Carrick's Middlesbrough verdict as he fumes at controversial Blackburn Rovers moment

Michael Carrick was left frustrated with the officiating as Middlesbrough were beaten by Blackburn Rovers in controversial circumstances at the Riverside.

Dom Hyam scored a 77th-minute winner in a poor game overall, as both sides struggled to break one another down throughout. In the decisive moment that divided the two sides, Hyam was in an offside position as Todd Cantwell played the ball across goal to him to score.

While the Boro boss pulled no punches over the fact that his own side had been well-below par in a game they missed key players and struggled to find their usual rhythm, he felt they more than deserved at least a point, as he couldn't hide his frustration at the nature of the winning goal.

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The Boro boss said: “We weren’t at our best, but we’ve ended up losing the game to a goal that’s not a goal. It was offside. There’s nothing much else to say, it’s clearly offside. It’s pretty obvious, but the less said the better probably from my point of view.

"A point would have been a point really. We had a few opportunities, half-chances really. Manu (Emmanuel Latte Lath) had a header, Neto (Borges) has had a header and Ben’s (Doak) hit the post. We just couldn’t quite find that answer.

“I thought we had a bit of flow at the start of the game, and started okay, but then it was a bit stop-start and the game sort of slowed down really. We couldn’t quite find that spark. It didn’t really suit us because we were trying to create and make something happen, but it ended up just drifting a bit."

He continued: "It wasn’t for the want of trying, the boys wanted to try, it just didn’t quite have that moment or that little something different we were after. A point would have been a point and we would have moved on, but with the way the goal went in, and with us ending up losing the game, it’s pretty hard to take really.

"It was going to come at some point – you couldn’t keep scoring goals at the rate we were. Some of the football we’ve been playing has been really, really good, and this won’t knock us too much. It’s one of those games that happen. It could have been a draw and should have been a draw. It is what it is."