Tony Pulis bemoaned his side's inability to punish Norwich City as Middlesbrough crashed to their first defeat of the season at Carrow Road on Saturday afternoon. 

Teemu Puki scored his fourth home goal just before the hour after Middlesbrough had dominated the opening exchanges of the match, but failed to take their chances.

“It’s disappointing, I thought we had a pretty good start,” Pulis told the club's website.

“A couple of opportunities, a couple of chances, an array of corners and we dropped off after about 20 minutes and they came into the game, and they were the better team up until half-time and they were better after the break as well up until they got the goal."

The result means that Middlesbrough drop down to fourth in the league from second with Brentford and Bristol City climbing above them.

Jonny Howson had the best chance of the first half when he swivelled on the ball and struck it towards goal only to find Tim Krul in the way.

The Dutchman continued to thwart Boro, most notably with a fantastic save to deny Martin Braithwaite in the second half.

Pukki, who scored twice for Finland during the international break, continued his fine scoring run when he poked the ball past Darren Randolph to score the winner.

The verdict 

Boro will still be right up there battling for automatic promotion come the end of the season so this is not too much to worry about at all.

The wasted chances will be a concern considering how few they tend to create and will be something that Pulis will no doubt be working on in training this week.