
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."