GEORGE Boateng last night admitted that Gareth Southgate's decision to drop him from Middlesbrough's starting line-up had "cracked his confidence".

But after Julio Arca's knee injury ended his temporary exile, the Boro skipper insisted he would answer his critics emphatically between now and the end of the season.

With Arca having formed a successful midfield partnership with Fabio Rochemback, Boateng found himself shuffled onto the right wing in the early stages of this season.

Having spent almost all of his career in a central position, the Dutchman struggled to adapt to his new surroundings and, despite his status as the club's captain, he found himself unceremoniously dropped to the bench for last month's home game with Sunderland.

His exile lasted all of 27 minutes, the time it took for Arca to sustain a long-term ligament injury that hastened his return. Yet despite having made almost 200 senior appearances for the Teessiders, those 27 minutes were enough to cause Boateng to ask fundamental questions of his value to the team.

"Personally, my confidence is not as high as it was before the Sunderland game," admitted the 31-year-old, with commendable honesty. "I admit that being on the bench against Sunderland did crack my confidence a bit.

"That's normal. It's an adversity and it's a setback in my personal career. But I've been there before in the past and I've overcome it. It's another battle that I have on my hands and I need to come back fighting."

For much of his Middlesbrough career, Boateng has been unanimously identified as the club's linchpin.

Two seasons ago, Boro failed to win a single game when he missed eight successive matches with an ankle problem, but last term, his influence was widely regarded to have waned.

There were explanatory factors - the Holland international spent the majority of the campaign battling against niggling knee and toe problems - but the emergence of the explosive Lee Cattermole led many to conclude that Boateng's days as Boro's primary midfield enforcer were numbered.

Southgate's landmark decision to drop him seemed to confirm that he also shared those views, but Boateng's immediate restoration to the starting line-up confirmed that his manager continues to hold him in high esteem.

The challenge facing the Ghana-born midfielder now is to justify that support, and re-establish his reputation as the player Middlesbrough can least afford to lose. Unsurprisingly, given the depth of his Christian faith, it is one he is ready to accept head on.

"I am not going to hide," pledged Boateng. "My character will speak for itself in the end. Great sportsmen are able to come back from disappointments. Those that hide, will fail.

"People will write me off, that's fine. They will be the same people that are giving me compliments at the end of the year."

And just as Boateng is remaining defiant in the face of adversity, so he is challenging his team-mates to display similar resolution in the face of a four-game winless run that has seen them drop to 14th in the Premier League table and crash out of the Carling Cup.

Sunday's 2-0 reverse at Everton was arguably Boro's most dispiriting defeat of the season, with the Teessiders finishing the game with a strike pairing comprised of 20-year-old novice Tom Craddock and 20-year-old centre-half David Wheater.

Both players battled gamely for little reward but, while Boateng is confident the pair have a bright future in the game, he claims that the current situation calls for experienced heads.

And, more specifically, the skipper has urged his team-mates to be brave enough to demand possession even though things might not necessarily be going their way.

"We're in the middle of a demanding run and this is where you need men and not children," he explained.

"You need people who are prepared to want the ball, have the ball and play. You don't need people who are frightened of making a mistake.

"We all make mistakes, but you need men who are prepared to stand up and do their jobs. In the Premier League, you can't expect to win if you have three or four players who aren't prepared to fight as much as they need to. On the day, you need at least eight or nine players performing at their highest level or you're not going to win the game."

Middlesbrough have been linked with a possible move for out-of-contract striker John Aloisi. The Australia international, who played for both Portsmouth and Coventry in the late 1990s, was released by Spanish club Alaves earlier this summer.