A DEFIANT Gareth Southgate insisted he remains “determined to see the job through” and will not walk away from Middlesbrough, despite their relegation being confirmed at Upton Park.

The greatest of great escapes never looked like materialising in East London as a lacklustre display ended a desperate season for the club.

Gary O’Neil’s second half strike cancelled out Carlton Cole’s opener but Junior Stanislas got the winner with an effort that Brad Jones should have saved.

Southgate received a mixed reception when he went over to acknowledge the near 1,500 away following after the game and admitted there are many who want to see him leave.

“I have to accept a large percentage of our supporters would want to see a change of manager,” admitted Southgate, whose side never looked like scoring the five goals they would have needed to stay up.

“This has been a tough time for this football club but I am determined to see it through.

The chairman will decide what happens ultimately.

“This last six months have been very, very hard. But, like all experiences in life, you have to go through the painful things to come out better. I’ve learned an incredible amount in a very short space of time.

“We’ve flirted with relegation in many of our 11 seaons in the PL, though we have finished in the top ten twice. Tomorrow, we come out fighting again.”

Southgate confirmed he will meet this week with chairman Steve Gibson to discuss the changes the manager has insisted will be made this summer.

With Southgate indicating Tuncay is almost certain to leave, many will follow the Turkey international through the exit door.

Stewart Downing, however, is unlikely to be one of those with his broken foot expected to keep him out of football until the end of the year.

“There’ll be personal agendas that come to the fore – we have to bring some money in to go forward, and there are situations that I want to change.

“Because this has been looming for a few weeks, I have some clear ideas how we have to play to get out of the division below. There will be big changes, inevitably, in the playing personnel.

“I don’t regret any of the players who have moved on.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring in enough of the right kind of characters to help the young players get through. We need to learn, in terms of the balance of the squad, how we set up in the future.

“Nothing else has been discussed with the chairman. I have to sit down with him this week and plan more definitely what will happen. We will have to improve to get out of the division below, and we’re ready to make those changes.

“It clearly hasn’t worked for us this year but I want to stay.

The last five years, we’ve flirted with relegation a lot.”

Southgate refused to criticise his players, who never really threatened to score the goals needed to give them a chance of staying up.

“I thought it was possible,”

said Southgate. “We let the players know what was going on at half-time because we thought it might give us a lift.

“We hoped we’d get a bit of momentum going with the goal, but we didn’t have enough of the game.

“We ended up with an extremely young team, but I was proud of the way they performed on the day. Today wasn’t the reason we went down, but it did highlight the lack of depth to our squad.

“They need to understand the reasons why this happened and learn from it as individuals.

It’s been a tough year for them. They’re a young group and, in the end, the injuries tell how much strain was put on the squad.”