If Middlesbrough can’t eradicate their silly mistakes this season then it’s fair to say that they can kiss goodbye to their promotion aspirations.

Last weekend’s defeat at Preston North End was just the latest defeat in which Boro gifted it to their opponents in the most ridiculous of manners. As Rav van den Berg and Luke Ayling clashed heads while both trying to deal with a cross, Aidan Morris made a blind back pass to them, with the pair hunched and still hurting from the head clash. Ayling tried to recover the situation but to no avail. Emil Riis nipped in and accepted the present to condemn Boro to another frustrating defeat.

To compound the misery, Boro found themselves the butt of the jokes after. Preston North End’s official Tiktok account no less, posted a video of the goal, mockingly overlaying it with a Chuckle Brothers song. Oh dear, oh dear indeed!

READ MORE: 'Gratitude' - Matthew Hoppe sends 'special' Middlesbrough message after completing transfer

READ MORE: How Morgan Whittaker could be used at Middlesbrough amid Ben Doak's right-wing dominance

Whether a football club should be engaging in such social content is perhaps an argument for another day. More importantly, the club should have been shown it to the Boro players this week. If becoming the butt of the jokes of opponents isn’t the wake up call this side have needed for quite some time, quite simply, what on earth will be?

That’s the bigger picture of the mocking social media post. Preston are unlikely to have been aware of the wider context - that the goal was far from the first calamitous moment at the back for Boro this season. Officially, the statistics have them down for conceding eight goals directly from unenforced errors. It’s a league high. But there have been countless more examples so far this season of goals that, at the very least, Boro did more to concede than the opposition had to do to score it.

The biggest frustration of that is that we know how good this side can be, and therefore how costly such errors are. From a coaching perspective, Boro are largely pretty solid at the back and concede so few chances overall. But in consistently being unable to go 90 minutes without some sort of gift to the opposition, they're hurting themselves and their play-off chances.

On mistakes, Carrick said ahead of Sunderland: “I think we could have helped ourselves a lot more. We have to try and feed off the disappointment and use it as motivation for the next game now.

“From a coaching perspective, we try to focus on the flow of the game and how the goal came about - what led up to that point and what we can do better. In terms of our defence, in terms of shots against, we’re near the top of the league.

“The conversion rate against us is high though, and that’s something we’ve spoken about and we need to do something about. We’ve spoke about it, worked on it this week and we’ll find a way.”

There is of course the argument that Carrick's coaching and style contributes to it. That Preston goal was an example of Boro shooting themselves in the foot while playing out from the back in a moment where the wise thing to do is just clear the lines and nip the danger in the bud.

Carrick will never criticise such actions because he does ultimately want his players to be brave in playing out from the back. When they do and it works, it can be devastatingly effective. But there are times when it just simply isn't on and shouldn't be risked. That's a game-management element that Boro have been poor at all season - and beyond. While Carrick will always defend his players publically, they're ultimately all good enough players to take more responsibility in the moment to cut out the silly errors.

On the onus of the players, he continued: “They do have a big responsibility. When we score a goal, it’s not me who gets the credit for it, it’s the players who score, and rightly so. That works both ways.

“We share the responsibility. It’s very easy to jump on individual mistakes. We rely on individuals to make good decisions, for sure. We try to provide a structure and have a plan to stop goals, and score them. We try to give the players a freedom to make the right decisions with and without the ball though.

“But there’s also a plan and a structure we expect of them. But there’s a human element. In the heat of the moment, how you deal with it. Are you calm and composed? Are you aggressive and tense? That comes from the individual and is part of the beauty of the game.”

The fact of the matter is, far too many times this season, Boro have been the latter. The composure needed has been lacking and the mistakes have been costly. They’ve dropped far too many points from gifting far too many soft goals against.

This is a good Boro side who have more than enough quality at both ends of the pitch to be a lot better off this season than they are. They can’t change the past but they can influence the future. That Preston social media video must serve as a wake up call and as motivation.