MALKY: SECOND HALF EFFORT NOT ENOUGH

, the day ending with ‘City five points clear of second place Hull, albeit with a game in hand on the Tigers.Malky Mackay cited a poor five minute first half spell in Cardiff City’s away day loss to promotion chasing Middlesbrough on Saturday

“I thought we had started well, but it was a bad ten minutes for us defending-wise, it was poor defending and poor individual errors,” he said after the Riverside Stadium defeat.

“When you do that it costs you goals against good players, giving us a mountain to climb. We finished off the first half in reasonably good form, had a couple of chances and then threw everything at them second half.

“We shot ourselves in the foot a bit and we gave away two goals which we would normally never concede and that made it very difficult, but we put in a spirited second half and we got one back and to be honest we had enough chances to have got the leveller.

“I felt we probably deserved a point on the basis of that second half performance. On another day we could have got something out of the game, so that’s disappointing. We allowed them two goals at the start before we took the game to them.

“I was pleased with the amount of effort we put in during the second half, especially with the way we kept going, but that’s what happens when you let two poor goals in.”