Two Boro red flags Edwards over this

ROB Edwards is likely to have two concerns that he'll want to work on and see improvements in following Middlesbrough's first Championship defeat of the season.

- By CRAIG JOHNS

After scraping through with draws in under-par performances against Southampton and Stoke City, they were unable to match that on Saturday at Portsmouth as Minhyeok Yang's first-half strike condemned Boro to their first league defeat of the season. That's important context as many Boro fans no doubt emerge from the defeat disheartened.

While nobody wants to taste defeat, the likelihood of Boro going all season without a loss was highly improbable. It shouldn’t by any means detract from what has been a superb start to the campaign.

But the key for Boro now is how they react to this first defeat. We're about to have one major question mark answered after the first loss.

Edwards' side have made a fantastic start to the season, with their points haul from an undefeated eight-game start a club record.

However, although they never managed a fast start to a season, Michael Carrick's Boro were also usually very patchy in form.

They'd quite often go on long unbeaten runs, and then long winless runs, as opposed to standard inconsistency issues of good and bad performances from one week to the next.

The big question for Boro under Edwards now is whether or not they're still that same team with patchy form, or whether they can react positively to the Pompey defeat and get straight back to winning ways when Ipswich Town visit in just under a fortnight.

In that sense, while frustrating to not have a quick opportunity to put things right, the international break comes at a positive time for Boro.