STEPHEN McMANUS was saddened by the departure of Gordon Strachan this week, but feels the whole squad is responsible for Middlesbrough’s failings and not any individual.

He is well aware there are now question marks over the future of every member of the dressing room, knowing the next manager will inherit what is effectively Strachan’s squad.

Given that seven of them have moved down from the Scottish Premier League, it is inevitable there will be even greater uncertainty about those players perceived as the former Celtic man’s men.

However, McManus thinks it would be disrespectful and harsh to single out any player within the dressing room in the blame game.

“As soon as I arrived at Middlesbrough there has been a real togetherness,” said Mc- Manus. “I was lucky, I didn’t come in the summer, I came in January and I had a really good feel about the place.

“The fans, the club, the town, everything. It is so hard to actually talk about where it went wrong for us this season.

We are working hard to put it right and it is not the lads who came in during the summer whose fault it is, it is the full squad.

“It is easy to point fingers, that should not be the case, it is a squad game. If we get promoted it is the squad, it is not down to one individual. It is the group’s fault the manager has left.”

Steve Gibson, the Middlesbrough chairman, will spend the weekend putting together a four-man shortlist to work on in the hope of appointing the right man before the visit of Bristol City in eight days.

Steve Round, Gary Megson and Paul Ince are among those under consideration, while Tony Mowbray still remains the firm favourite of the realistic contenders.

If it was Mowbray he would find himself working with Mc- Manus, Barry Robson, Willo Flood and Scott McDonald again, having decided to offload them during his time at Celtic.

But McManus, one of the many players Gibson has spoken to about the situation, insists there would be no problems if Mowbray was to find himself in charge of the club he left as a player in 1991.

McManus said: “We will be doing everything we can. It is the squad of players we have got and they will run through a brick wall for whoever is in charge because that is the squad of players we have.

“We just want to get up the way. It is where the club should be and we are trying our very best to get it back where it belongs.

“We are not Celtic lads, we are Middlesbrough lads.

Everyone else will talk about things like that.

“Whoever comes in, the chairman will take his time picking the right man. He will make sure.

“We will be 100 per cent behind the man and you take pride in what you do whoever is in charge. That is what we will do. We have no idea who will come in. All you can do is concentrate on your own game.”

McManus was one of the better performers at Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night, when Middlesbrough lost 1-0 to drop within goal difference of the Championship’s bottom three.

There are now 15 points separating Boro from second place and they are nine shy of the play-offs, which is in desperate need of improvement at Norwich City tomorrow.

“It is hard when a manager leaves and you have caretakers in,” said McManus, impressed by the way Steve Agnew and Mark Proctor have slotted in this week.

“We just have to do the best we can for the previous manager, for the fans for everybody.

It is difficult.

“But we are the lucky ones who get to play football every day for a living. Every single one of the lads is working hard every day to become the best they possibly can be.

“There’s people in the world who would give their right hand to be in our position, so we just have to keep working as hard as we can and it will turn around.”