Norwich must keep ball better - Manning

Norwich head coach Liam Manning urged his side to improve their ball retention after suffering a second successive home defeat at the start of the new season.

The Canaries were beaten 2-1 by Middlesbrough despite Josh Sargent giving them late hope with his fourth goal in as many matches.

"We did a really good job first half of problem solving and I thought we managed to start putting a bit of pressure on higher up," Manning told BBC Radio Norfolk.

"We got some control of the ball but have to show more quality when we do break their structure.

"We'd had a couple of warning signs and turned the ball over far too cheaply, and at this level when you give it away so easily you end up defending your goal extremely quickly.

"Things are improving but what you can't do is (go from) performing an action at eight out of 10 to a three very quickly, there were far too many of them."

Jacob Wright was sent off for a poor tackle just before the hour mark, but Manning added: "After that we saw another side to the team and they continued to fight to the end, which is a really important attribute, but ultimately just fell a little bit short."

Norwich are away to Blackburn Rovers next Saturday.