Saturday 21 January 2017 19:26, UK
Aitor Karanka has blamed an "awful" atmosphere and the Middlesbrough fans for forcing his team to play "broken" long-ball football at the end of their 3-1 defeat to West Ham.
Boro were behind and chasing an equaliser throughout the second half and he believes the supporters calling for balls to be pumped forward affected his side's mentality.
Boro fell behind to an Andy Carroll header before equalising through Cristhian Stuani, but Carroll scored again to put West Ham back in front and Jonathan Calleri added the third at the death.
Karanka said: "I was really upset with the last 10 minutes. We didn't play in the way we have to play, in the way we know how to play and it was because the atmosphere was awful today.
"The fans demanded a lot of the players. We don't know how to play in that way. Playing in that way, we didn't create one chance, and the team was broken on the pitch.
"That's something I don't like at all. We have to improve. (The fans) and we need to understand where we were last season or two seasons ago, and I think these players deserve more respect.
"When you don't have the experience, and I don't know how many thousand people are asking for long balls, at the end you have to play long balls. It's a style we don't know how to play.
"We didn't play one game or one minute in the Championship (like that) and it's something we have to fix. While I'm here, we won't be playing long balls.
"We tried to play more open because we need to win more games. We tried to be more aggressive, to play forward, and we did. I made decisions to try and score the second goal knowing I was taking the risk that they could break, which I don't like."
