GARETH Southgate last night defended his decision to finish Middlesbrough's 2-0 defeat to Everton with a strike pairing comprising a 20-year-old making the third appearance of his career and a centre-half who had never played a senior game at centre-forward.

But with both Mido and TunÃay Sanli facing a race to be fit for next weekend's trip to Manchester City, the Boro boss has admitted he is going to have to consider every option available to him in an attempt to end a four-game winless run.

Having substituted both Mido and Dong-Gook Lee in the second half of yesterday's game, Southgate spent the final 20 minutes watching Tom Craddock and David Wheater fail to break down an Everton defence that coasted to their second clean sheet of the season.

The makeshift strike-force underlined the paucity of Boro's attacking options in the absence of the injured Jeremie Aliadiere, and questioned the wisdom of selling both Ayegbeni Yakubu and Mark Viduka this summer.

Southgate stands by his decision to sell last season's two leading scorers, and insists other clubs will suffer similar injury crises this season. But with Lee, in particular, struggling to adapt to the pressures of the Premier League, he also admitted Boro's striking situation was beginning to give him cause for concern.

"I don't know how many strikers Everton have - I think it's four - but most Premier League clubs have a similar number of options," said Southgate. "We have the same, but we have had injuries to three of ours.

"Mido had to come off today because he was feeling something (in his hamstrings). TunÃay was not quite ready and, even though we hope he's back for Man City, it's taking longer than we hoped.

"Other clubs would be in the same situation if they'd lost the services of three strikers, but we have to think about what we can do with the players who are available and how we might improve."

Yesterday's defeat means Boro have now conceded 13 goals in eight league games, a statistic that suggests that an abandonment of Southgate's attacking policy could help to bring about an improvement in results.

While a positive approach is laudable, it is also leaving the Teessiders vulnerable at the back, but having committed himself to a more adventurous style of play, the Boro boss is not about to change his spots.

"I don't think we can take a step back," he said. "We have brought in players who are strongest when they play in the way we want to play.

"The team was as strong as I felt it could be today and we probably had enough first-half chances to have at least gone in level. We didn't take them, though, and we paid the price."

With Everton having leapt to fifth place in the table as a result of yesterday's victory, and with Boro languishing in 14th, just three points above the relegation zone, the two sides would appear to be on very different trajectories this season.

Southgate accepts that David Moyes has assembled a useful squad of players at Goodison Park, but denies that Boro have dropped out of the group of clubs who can realistically hope to compete for a European place.

"David is four or five years down the line in putting his team together," he said. "We are still in the early stages. If we had beaten them today, though, we would have had more points.

"I do feel we have progressed as a club and we are capable of finishing this season better than last year. A lot of hard work has gone in, but a lot more is needed.

"We either become a team that pushes on from where we are and roll our sleeves up, or we don't. So put like that, there's no option is there?"

Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill has leapt to the defence of Martin Jol and believes Tottenham are capable of breaking into the top four and achieving Champions League football.

Jol is under pressure after Spurs' indifferent start to the campaign.

But O'Neill points to Tottenham's record in the past two seasons as testament to Jol's qualities.

O'Neill said ahead of tonight's clash between the teams at White Hart Lane: ''Spurs will be a very difficult team to beat.

''When they have everyone back fit, they are capable of being a very good side."