Steve Evans was in fine fooling after the draw with Fleetwood Town - but that was simply hiding his frustrations.

Boro had plenty of the ball in the 0-0 Lamex stalemate but failed to truly breakdown a stubborn and solid visiting defence.

And the opening question of the post-match chat, which begin with a prolonged stay on the first couple of letters of the word share, set the tone.

"I thought when you went sh, you were going to say a different word that described the performance," said the boss with a sly grin.

"And you would have been absolutely correct in your use of that language. 

"It was a poor performance from us all round, a nervous performance against a team that in the last four or five weeks have suddenly become well disciplined and well organised under Charlie Adam. 

"We don't take that away, but we got ourselves into good opportunities both early in the game and in the second half when it was total dominance. 

"But when we got in into those good areas, we never got through them so that’s disappointing.

"We make two or three good opportunities. Jamie Reid has got away a half volley. 

"I said to you we will win games and we’ll lose games but I never mentioned drawing games. 

"The sad thing from my point of view today is I don't think we created enough momentum, we never really laid siege to their goal in the way we have done here for 23 months."

He emerged from a dressing room that remained quiet during the boss's post-match briefing.

And he said the effort levels were the problem.

"It's probably a day if you're half educated as a player, you don't lift your head because you may just have got a rattle," he said. "Better to sit with your head down. 

"That’s based on our performance. Our performance levels were six and a half and sevens out of 10. 

"That’s not enough to win a game, especially with 11 games to go in League One and you’re fighting for every point." 

And he used a couple of examples to highlight his point.

Evans said: "Dan Butler has been good for us, [that's why he's kept Nesta Guinness-Walker out].

"He wasn’t today, but he’s been very good over the season.  

"And when I say he hasn’t been good, I mean he’s been average. Average is not what we expect of Dan Butler. 

"He’s one of our big players, like Carl Piergianni in the opposition box. He should score near the end, puts it inches wide and people will say unlucky. 

"I don’t, I say with your standards big man, I expect that to go in the bottom corner. 

"That’s where we just didn't come through. 

"We were below par and if we're below par for the next four games, we'll be thinking about booking our holidays, rather than focused on what we should be focused on which is gaining enough points to get into the play-offs. 

"There's enough clubs breathing down [our necks] but saying that, we're still in there and it’s another game chopped off. 

"That’s a positive."