Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom says he cannot accept how his side were rolled over in their heavy defeat at Middlesbrough.
North End lost a third successive Championship game to fall out of the play-off spots, all without scoring as they succumbed at the Riverside.
They were three down by half-time and then had defender Jordan Storey sent off to make matters worse on a miserable afternoon for all concerned.
"The goals were all mistakes, all errors, so you're never going to win games if you give goals away like that," Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Lancashire.
"We've gifted the game to Boro but they're a good side – it would have been hard enough anyway not doing that.
"But I can't accept that we come to a place like this and just because they're a good side, we roll over.
"We've shown in spells this season that we can play to those levels. Our challenge is putting a group together that can do it for 46 games."
