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Middlesbrough's slump continued as they were held to a goalless draw at Burnley but Tony Mowbray's side remain in the play-off places in the Championship.

Boro have won just once in the league in 2013 and needed some smart saves from goalkeeper Jason Steele to earn a point at Turf Moor.

England Under-21 international Steele saved well from Charlie Austin and Dean Marney in the first half.

Substitutes Mustapha Carayol and Curtis Main went close for Boro late on.

Burnley, who are now seven points off the top six with a game in hand, saw Steele at full-stretch to turn Austin's first-time effort from the edge of the box behind in a bright start.

Marney then saw his near-post header kept out by the alert Steele before Boro finally mounted some pressure after the break.

Grant Leadbitter hit a low free-kick wide, Main put a snap-shot wide and Carayol gave Burnley goalkeeper Lee Grant his first serious work of the evening in stoppage time with a swerving, dipping long-range strike that was tipped over.

Boro are still in sixth place in the table, but are now just two points ahead of Brighton, who have a game in hand.

Burnley manager Sean Dyche:

"We played well for a large part of the game, kept the ball and dominated the possession stats and chance stats without really opening up that one clinical moment to finish it.

"It's a knife-edge sort of feeling. That's a side who are sixth and have got a lot of big players and they've come here and defended. That was the intent.

"It kind of shows how far we've come as a team and as a club to be recognised as someone who is still in there with a real chance of chasing the dream."

Middlesbrough manager Tony Mowbray:

"From our perspective we've conceded too many goals on the road recently.

"We've got a lot of injuries. I think it was 12 first-team players injured tonight and I don't make any apologies for coming and making sure that we were defensively solid.

"A really hard-working team was picked and a lot of attacking threat was left on the bench to try and make sure we stayed in the game.

"I was pleased that we kept a clean sheet, that we worked extremely hard for each other - it's been a difficult month-and-a-half."