Middlesbrough manager Neil Warnock has rued his side's defeat to Hull City in the Championship in midweek, saying 'the pain doesn't go away' after a defeat like that.

After a solid 2-0 win over Stoke City in his first game as the new Boro boss, Warnock's side looked as though they were heading for a relatively comfortable finish to the season.

That comfort was extended when Boro took an early lead at Hull in midweek, but Grant McCann's side clawed two goals back to take themselves out of the drop zone, and thrust Boro to within one point of it.

Speaking to Gazette Live, Warnock, when asked about the 'pain' of that Hull defeat, said:

"It doesn’t go away quickly when you lose a game like that. You have to move on. They come thick and fast now. With other clubs having two extra days, it’s tough on us but as I said to the lads we have to stick at it."

Boro now sit a point and a place above Stoke City in 22nd, with a home tie against one of Warnock's former suitors, QPR, on Sunday - the R's have lost all three of their fixtures since the restart, and could yet slip into a relegation battle of their own.

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"We haven’t got time to mope about," continued Warnock. "They all know what should happen, they should be able to do things off their own back. This is as difficult a job as I’ve had. Even at Rotherham we had six or fix defenders and we could build from that.

"It will go right down to the death this year. We don’t score enough goals. The other day I’d have been happy if we scored one and won, both [goals] were preventable. We have to defend better than what we did."

There's six remaining games of the Championship season. After QPR, Boro have a tough run-in with fixtures against Millwall, Bristol City, Reading, Cardiff and Sheffield Wednesday.

The verdict

Everything looked calm after Warnock's opening win against Stoke, but everything has since been put into perspective after that Hull defeat. Boro have a difficult run-in to the end of the season and if they're to have a fighting chance of survival, they must at least avoid defeat against QPR this weekend.