Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate admits Afonso Alves has suffered a confidence crisis this season.

"Afonso has suffered from a lack of confidence during the season when the ball hasn't been going in for him, but we know what he can do and hopefully he can be an important player for us in the run-in," Southgate said.

"In fact we need all our forwards to start producing. We will have to make sure that we adopt an attacking approach in all of our games and that we get the ball into the box and cause problems for the opposition.

"We won't be going gung-ho, because we know that we have to defend well at the same time. But we have quality defenders who can get us clean sheets and they have to do that. Then we must take our chances at the other end of the field.

"As far as we are concerned there is still a lot to play for. Nobody has given up here. We believe that we are still in there with a fighting chance and it's up to us."