Source: SKY_Sports
Downing up for battle
Middlesbrough winger Stewart Downing insists that keeping the club in the Premier League this season would be a 'great achievement'.[LNB] The England squad member, who wanted to quit the club in January, insists that Middlesbrough have had to cope with a lot so beating relegation would be a real plus.[LNB]Downing claims that although he will be discussing his future in the summer, he is not even thinking about that as Boro are his main concern.[LNB]"I think there's too much to worry about with the team situation at the minute than just my single problem, so let's see how we do," he said.[LNB]"When I spoke to the chairman, he said we would discus it (my situation) again in the summer and I haven't got a problem with that, I'll just get on with it.[LNB]"Hopefully we do stay up because it would a great shame for this town if we didn't.[LNB]"We've had to make a lot of cutbacks this season so it would be a great achievement if we stay up and that's my priority at the moment.[LNB]"Obviously I've got an England place to think of as well. I could easily sulk until the summer but what would be the point of that?[LNB]"I'm here so I may as well do my best and try to play well. People say 'play well to move' but I'm trying to play well to help our team to stay up because I do genuinely want us to get out of this situation we're in."[LNB]Fan praiseDowning also paid tribute to the club's fans, who did not criticise the player for wanting to move in January.[LNB]"Personally, for me, it's brilliant the fans stayed behind me. I thought I was going to get a lot of stick but they haven't done that. The fact is it's not just me the fans need to be behind, it's more important they stay behind the whole team," he told the Evening Gazette.[LNB]"If they were going to give me stick, then fair enough, but as long as they continue to get behind the team then that's great. The fans do help us, we saw that against Liverpool and again against Portsmouth.[LNB]"They haven't had much to shout about and there's no hiding the fact that we haven't scored enough goals. On Saturday I know they were getting a little bit frustrated at times, but if you watch the game as a whole again it wasn't as if we sat back. We had a go at Portsmouth. [LNB]"Sometimes we are going to make mistakes and not pick the right pass. But we are trying to get through a team who have 10 men behind the ball. Overall we've done our best.[LNB]"The big picture is everyone has got to stick together - players, manager, fans - that's the only way we're going to get out of it. It's the easy option to boo someone or get on someone's back but on Saturday they stuck with us until the end and we got a goal for it.[LNB]"Relegation is the last thing I want to see, there's six or seven lads from here just like me in the squad and it would be a hell of an achievement to get out of it but we're looking forward to the challenge.[LNB]"There's some big games coming up which we need to win. There's no point sulking about what's happened in the past. That's gone and you can't do anything about it so it's good that's there's a campaign and everyone's trying to get behind us."[LNB]
