BELIEVE it or not, Middlesbrough are fourth in the Championship. Admittedly, they have just been hammered at home by West Bromwich Albion, drew at Coventry and lost to Leicester City, but is there any sense in fans re-igniting calls for Gareth Southgate to step down now?

If there was a time for Southgate to move on it was in May, when Boro lost Premier League status and dropped into the Football League for the first time in more than a decade. It certainly isn't now.

A large number of disgruntled Boro fans have been quick to point the finger at Southgate following back-to-back home defeats and rightly so, after all it was his team that failed to deliver on both occasions in front of their own Teesside public.

There have, though, been plenty signs of recovery this season and even the Boro boss' harshest critic would have to accept that a promotion push remains a distinct possibility this season.

During the first three years of his managerial career, Southgate was asked to reduce an ever-increasing wage bill built up from an ageing squad.

Relegation, however, meant further summer sales were required.

But despite having to move on around £30m worth of talent and having a little more than £500,000 to reinvest in the squad before the recent loan signings, Southgate actually deserves credit for delivering the start they have enjoyed.

There are a number of supporters that want him out mainly because of last season's depressing fall, when up until the defeat to West Brom it is difficult to criticise how he has started the season.

Having kept faith with him during the summer and been told to sell Stewart Downing, Tuncay Sanli and Robert Huth - as well as move on Mido and Afonso Alves - there is no point in chairman Steve Gibson changing things now.

Gibson knows the financial constraints that he has been asking Southgate to work under and, given the way he has tinkered with an already inexperienced squad, the manager has lost just three of his opening ten league matches this season.

Gibson was criticised by many sections of the supporters for sticking by Southgate last season, but he should stand behind him now.