FRANCK QUEUDRUE has warned his team-mates he doesn't want to be mixing with any depressed faces after their UEFA Cup exit, and expects to see an instant reaction at the Riverside Stadium tomorrow.

Boro's first European campaign ended in the Estadio Jose Alvalade on Thursday, despite a battling performance, when they failed to overturn a 3-2 first-leg defeat.

Now the Teessiders face a crucial league fixture with Southampton knowing anything other than three points is likely to see them fall further down the Premiership table.

Steve McClaren's men have dropped from fifth to eighth since the turn of the year and are out of the UEFA Cup spots, so victory against the Saints is vital if they are to resurrect anything from a season that once promised so much.

Queudrue said: "We want to show our bubble hasn't burst. We want to show people there's no hangover from Thursday's result. We're disappointed to go out of Europe but we have shown great character and team spirit.

"If we play like that against Southampton then I think we will finish the game with three points.

"We have two days which are very important for our recovery. We are going to concentrate on getting over Thursday's result and make sure we are fully ready for Sunday.

"We need to win. It's become an even more important game for us because Tottenham, Charlton and Bolton are right around us. We're eighth in the league and we want to get in the top six."

Boro have played six times on a Sunday after a night in Europe on the Thursday and have yet to taste victory, with tiredness clearly a factor.

But, due to the predicament the club finds itself in domestically, Queudrue knows there can be no such excuses come tomorrow night and that maximum points are essential to the side's cause.

Boro have won just once in the league since the turn of the year and the energetic full-back expects fortunes to take a turn for the better over the final two months of the campaign.

"I don't know why it is that we have been unable to win on a Sunday," said Queudrue, knowing three points tomorrow could take them fifth.

"Maybe it's a concentration thing and after concentrating so hard on the big European games we have maybe not focused enough come a Sunday. That can't be the case this time.

"Every team during the season has a bad period and it's up to us to show that we will come out of it on Sunday. There are still enough games left for us to get into the top six and we can still do it."

l Young full-back Tony McMahon will see a specialist tomorrow and is likely to have a knee cartilage operation early next week. He could be ruled out for at least six weeks.

McMahon hobbled off the plane in the early hours of yesterday morning on crutches and his first season as part of Boro's first team seems to have reached an end.

But Boro have been handed a surprise boost ahead of tomorrow's match with the news that Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, missing from the defeat in Lisbon, could be back in the side.

It had been feared Hasselbaink would also be out for six weeks with a knee problem picked up in training on Monday but there is a slim chance he could return.

Dutch colleague Michael Reiziger will be back after recovering from illness but Ray Parlour remains a doubt with a hip problem.