MIDDLEBROUGH chairman Steve Gibson last night used his first public statement since Sunday’s relegation to insist Gareth Southgate should not be made the “scapegoat” for the club’s disastrous season.

Gibson, who has reportedly reduced Middlesbrough’s £93m debt by two-thirds, denied the club was at risk of going in to administration but admitted Stewart Downing will be sold this summer if a “big club” makes the right offer.

Answering fans’ questions, the Boro chairman defended Southgate’s record this season and believed everyone at the club bears collective responsibility for failing to extend their 11 consecutive years in the Premier League.

Gibson has begun a root and branch review to identify what has gone wrong this season and the steps required to regain their top flight status.

And he reiterated his belief that Southgate remains the best man to lead the club’s recovery.

“We will not have a scapegoat at this club – it will not be Gareth Southgate!” confirmed Gibson. “He’s a good man an intelligent man and is capable of being a top, top manager.

“The five year contract that Gareth was given when we appointed him (in June 2006) showed that it was not going to be an interim position otherwise his authority over players would have been undermined.

It was a clear statement that we were going to stick with him.”

And Gibson refuted claims Southgate’s relative inexperience had ultimately been exposed.

“There is no supermarket shelf with the title ‘experienced managers.’ We’re not going to get (Sir Alex) Ferguson or (Arsene) Wenger and you make your way down the list. We made out choice. I could have brought in a German manager and we’d have been ‘Middlesbrough on Rhine’. I didn’t want that. We are Middlesbrough, that’s where we are.

“I was born five minutes from the Riverside Stadium my childhood was in Pallister Park and I was brought up in Park End.

“We can’t change what’s just happened to the football club but we need to plan for a new challenge in the Championship.

We are here and it’s important that the supporters, the club and the town all stick together and prepare ourselves for this new challenge,”

declared the chairman, who explained some of the reasons behind why he has moved to drastically reduce the club’s debt and ensure their financial stability.

“The amount of money taken through that gate this year was £7m – it cost £4m to run the stadium. Middlesbrough have perhaps more restraints on it than any other club in the Premiership. We are the smallest town – everyone talks about Hull but they’ve a population twice the size of Middlesbrough.

These factors made life very difficult for Gareth.

“ I have to take responsibility for some of that. We have to punch above our weight. We’ve a lower income than everybody else and have to be more clever than other clubs.

“We have a clear objective that Middlesbrough return to the Premier League as soon as we possibly can. Nothing is certain in football but we have that one objective.

“I’ve spent all of today with Gareth and we have a clear plan and know what we need.

We reflected on what went wrong during the season and we’ve made mistakes as a club otherwise we wouldn’t have finished where we did.

We have to correct those mistakes very quickly.”