TONY MOWBRAY has spoken of his agony seeing Middlesbrough slip out of the Championship promotion picture – and admits that the job will be made even more difficult next season.

The Premier League's renegotiated TV deal will see parachute payments for sides relegated from the top flight increased from £48m over four years to £23m for the first season. Middlesbrough, who do not benefit from parachute payments any more, will receive a £2.3m solidarity payment from the Premier League.

Boro's wage bill is still among the top in the division, but Mowbray has already revealed that his budget will be cut further if promotion to the Premier League is not achieved. Boro's loss in form could be costly in many ways.

“Any defeat, whether you're top of the league or bottom, trying to get to the play-offs, any defeat hurts, possibly more than people will understand,” said Mowbray, ahead of his side's trip to Hull City today.

“Only your family understand the impact it has on you. There's been too much hurt over the last four months. 11 defeats in 15 matches, it's ridiculous.

“It has been a difficult period for us all. Half a positive is that the league hasn't run away from us. It should have undoubtedly done so, but it hasn't. We still sit with six games left. If we find form we've still got half a chance at the play-offs.

“The bigger concern, when I reflect on it all, is moving forward. For me, how are we going to get to the PL with the relegated clubs, the foreign investment?

“How do we get better with the ever-decreasing budget? Not just for our club but financial fair play, where every club has to work within its means.

“It's almost as if 15 games have undone a lot of hard hard work that had been going on behind the scenes here. That's the frustration for me. To try and improve a team despite the huge cuts that had been made. That will continue.

“That's a challenge, to try and improve a team and reduce the budget. By its nature that is challenging. How do we do that?

“We might have to sell players for x amount of pounds and buy players from different levels. You have to find diamonds on a beach of pebbles. When you find enough of them you can build a good team.

“It can be done. Burnley, Blackpool have got out of this league with smaller budgets than ours. All punching above their weight.

“We have to work within those parameters. It's not quite as simple as what is the budget. Players have contracts, the chairman quoted that two players are taking a fair chunk of the budget. But you have to work within that, you have to keep going.”

In spite of what a daunting task a fifth season in the Championship could bring, Mowbray's enthusiasm for the job is unwavering.

“It's a challenge but I'm up for the fight of trying to achieve that,” said Mowbray, who took the Boro job in October 2010. “The supporters are trying to understand it, we're all frustrated and annoyed, we're disappointed.

“I don't think it's an easy job moving forward. We are in the Championship, we have been for four years, there's no parachute money. The teams being relegated will have £23m coming in, how can we compete with that? Wolves, Bolton, Blackburn, teams before that who also have parachute payments.

“We have to compete with them so how do we do that? We punch above our weight, we have a cameraderie, we have a team spirit. The only way to do it is to get good players with a fantastic team spirit and take them beyond themselves to beat the teams with the bigger budgets. The league is showing that at the moment with the smaller teams beating the bigger ones. Can you do it for 46 games?

“Hopefully we can find an exciting young team, attract 20,000 to the Riverside, it gives you a better chance than the teams with 10,000 attendances, the more revenue you create the more you can invest in the team and the better chance you have of getting out of this league.”

For all the riches that will be in the Championship next year, Boro know all too well that an expensive gamble does not always pay off. In 2010, Boro were the division's top spenders that summer, assembling an expensive squad which ultimately failed, with Gordon Strachan resigning in the October.

“Financial Fair Play is what it is,” explained Mowbray. “The relegated clubs' parachute payment goes into their income which allows them to keep their Premier League players. But Wolves, Blackburn and Bolton haven't done well this season. Blackburn spent 8m on Jordan Rhodes to try and bounce back, it hasn't happened.

“Steve (Gibson) and Gordon (Strachan) had a plan to invest heavily to get out of the league, for whatever reason that didn't pan out and you have to deal with the consequences moving forward. “For the past 15 games it's frustrating to be judged when there has been two years' worth of work going on behind the scenes.”