Southgate Admits Middlesbrough Players On Edge
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Following the 1-0 loss to Everton, Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate confessed that his players are going through a crisis in confidence.
Boro's dismal run of form continued as they were outplayed on their own patch, with the Toffees prevailing despite their injury crisis thanks to a Tim Cahill goal which should have been followed by more from the visitors.
"I am disappointed with the result and we know it was a scrappy performance," Southgate said one Sky Sports.
"In the run we are on at the moment, we are not flowing as a team, we worked and worked but we were not good enough on the day to get back into the game.
"The whole afternoon was edgy, we looked short of confidence - we have got a lot of hard work ahead of us - we are not in the position we want to be, but there is no easy way out of this and the group have to stick together.
"After 20 games last year we had 20 points so we are about where we were, but other teams around us have improved so we have got to lift our game. There is a long way to go, and in this league everyone gets very emotional as we were are three points off tenth.
"In football you get lots of knock backs and it is how you bounce back from," he added.
"Whatever happens over the next few weeks, we have got 19 games left and we have to take as many points as we can, the priority is to remain in the division.
"There is a lot of doom around the place but there is only us who can lift that."
Southgate, who saw his team drop down to fourth-from-last as a result of the loss, the made a statement which was aimed as both a plea and a warning to the players.
"We need everyone, we need everyone who wants to be here, we need people to dig in for the cause, dig in for the shirt, dig in for he club," the ex England defender continued.
"We have got to make sure that we have got people who are prepared to do that with us, if not then we have to take those things into consideration - but we have to have a really tight group and they have to work hard to get us out of this position.
"At the moment, we have to work with the players we have got, five or six games ago we were on 17-18 points and everyone was very satisfied."