Middlesbrough manager Gareth Southgate admits the club faces an enormous task to stay in the top flight this season.

After being knocked out of the FA Cup on the weekend, 'Boro can now focus on improving from 19th position on the league table.

"I cannot fault the commitment of the players I have, the spirit is very good and they are very resilient because they bounce back quickly, probably because they are so young," Southgate said.

"They know what lies ahead. They have to roll their sleeves up and work hard because we have a huge task on our hands.

"But everyone is ready for that battle. We showed in the first half at Everton that we had put behind us the 4-0 midweek defeat at Spurs last week.

"The goals that we conceded there will not be mistakes we will make again in a long time.

"It is a painful learning process, for our fans and for our players.

"We wanted to keep the cup dream alive, but in reality we can now concentrate on what will be a very hard task to stay up.

"We are stretched by injuries, but so are a lot of teams. We are all going to pull together as much as we can to get through this.

"I'm feeling no more pressure than anyone else in the country at the moment. Everybody in every walk of life is facing huge pressure.

"What I have to do is lead a group of lads through the difficult times we are facing, and show them the route out of it, and I have good staff to help me do that.

"The cup defeat does not affect what we know needs to be done in the league to correct the situation.

"We have a quarter of the season to go and we have to show the fighting qualities we produced in the first half against Everton.

"But we must start learning how to win matches, that is what is costing us at the moment. We are not finishing teams off."