Downing confident Boro can avoid the drop

Middlesbrough winger Stewart Downing is confident the club can avoid the drop this season.

Boro are struggling in the relegation zone, within two points of safety, following their victory over Hull City at the weekend.

He told the club’s official website: “We’re determined to win again, we have to win. There’s no point letting all the hard work we’ve put in go to waste.

“Overall I thought we thoroughly deserved the win on Saturday, although I’ll admit I thought ‘here we go again’ when we conceded another sloppy goal from a cross.

“But we responded well. We had all the talk beforehand from Hull saying that we were this and we were that and we don’t do this and we don’t do that.

“We showed that we didn’t need to come out and talk, we did our talking on the pitch and were the better team by far.

“We can’t worry about what other teams are doing, we just have to do our bit and I’m confident we’ll get out of it, especially if we play the way we did against Hull.”

[Source: Middlesbrough’s official website]