AITOR KARANKA accused his Middlesbrough players of “playing for themselves rather than the team” as they failed to beat Championship basement boys Blackpool at the Riverside.

Former Boro striker Ishmael Miller cancelled out Daniel Ayala’s headed opener as Boro failed to win at home for the third time in the last four matches.

The result would have been even worse had David Perkins’ first-half strike not rebounded off the post and Miller failed to convert two decent late opportunities, and after last week’s heroics at Anfield, Boro’s players produced a laboured performance in front of their own fans.

The result leaves the Teessiders in eighth position, and while they only trail leaders Norwich City by three points going into Saturday’s game with another of the Championship’s strugglers, Fulham, Karanka admits he was far from impressed with last night’s efforts.

“I’m frustrated and angry,” said the Boro head coach. “It’s another missed opportunity and, if we want to do something, these are the kind of games where we can’t be losing points.

“We lost another two points and the worst thing for me was the way we played. I felt the players were playing for themselves and playing on their own. If we want to get something, we have to play as a team, but today we didn’t do that.

“There were too many players playing for themselves, and I don’t like players playing for themselves, I like players who play for the team.”

Blackpool started pre-season with just eight contracted players, and went into last night’s game having scored just one goal away from Bloomfield Road all campaign.

They have now doubled that tally, and for large periods of the game, it was the visitors who were creating the more dangerous opportunities.

Boro’s performance was flat, but Karanka denied that his players were suffering from over-confidence given the parlous state of their opponents for most of the last three months.

“We played against the team at the bottom of the table, so you can be confident,” he said. “But you have to take that confidence into the game and after we scored the first goal, we should have kept going in the same way.

“Some of the players played well, especially considering some of them have played in all of the last three or four games, but there were other players where I didn’t like their attitude. I felt some players were playing for themselves – I didn’t like their performance.

“I told the players before the game that everybody would be excited, and I understand that. I don’t think it was a problem that we were excited or confident, it was something else. Although I don’t think it helped that we lost a player like (Adam) Clayton in the first half and didn’t have Dean (Whitehead) or Albert (Adomah) on the bench to replace him.”

Clayton did not appear himself in the opening stages, and disappeared down the tunnel before the half-hour mark to be replaced by Kike.

The midfielder had been struggling with a sickness bug in the build up to the game, but was passed fit to start by Middlesbrough’s medical team.

“He was a little bit ill before the beginning, but we were speaking to the doctor and we all decided he should play,” said Karanka. “But he felt bad and was ill. I think he’ll be ready in two or three days.”

Miller, who bundled home his first goal of the season to secure a point, and Tony McMahon, who captained Boro’s FA Youth Cup side to national glory in 2004, both made successful returns to Teesside, but Blackpool’s satisfaction at their third point of the season was overshadowed by a pre-match controversy involving Nile Ranger.

The former Newcastle United striker, who racked up a string of off-field misdemeanours during his time on Tyneside, was omitted from the Blackpool squad, and took to social media to vent his frustration via the use of an expletive less than an hour before kick-off.

Blackpool manager Jose Riga refused to comment on the issue after the game, but the Seasiders are expected to hold an internal inquiry into Ranger’s conduct.