Robson promises that Boro will improve

Stand-in Middlesbrough captain Barry Robson has promised the 'Boro support that his performances will only improve.

Robson has made the biggest impact at the Riverside Stadium of the five players that left Celtic in January and has a red card, a goal and the captaincy to show for his efforts.

Boro must win at Nottingham Forest today to retain any outside hopes of an automatic promotion place although a play-off spot looks much more realistic.

Forest are battling it out with West Brom and Newcastle for a promotion place with Robson aware that Gordon Strachan's side will need to improve on their midweek defeat from Blackpool if they are to take anything from today's match.

Discussing his goal in last weeks win over Peterbroug he said: "I don't think my overall performance was one of my better ones and as for the team, it won't do.

"We're better footballers than that. That wasn't us, I think we can all do a lot better. That's the disappointing thing, we want to do much better for the fans.

"I suppose it was a good thing that we could win when not playing well. Winning is the most important thing, but we're good footballers and we want to show that.

"The manager sets the standards very, very high at this football club and if you don't reach those standards he lets you know.
 
"We need to stay strong and work hard. The manager wasn't happy with the performances and the players weren't either. We can play and we can penetrate, but we can play a lot better."

Middlesbrough go into today's game trailing Forest by 14 points with Gordon Strachan having won five, lost five and drawn nine matches since replacing Gareth Southgate.