AN HONEST Jonathan Woodgate has spoken of his anguish at Middlesbrough's loss in form - and insists his side must get back to winning ways tonight.

Woodgate, who signed for the club from Stoke City in the summer, has seen his hometown club go from promotion candidates to being six points adrift of the play-offs in three short months.

And the former Marton youngster has admitted that being a Teessider has made the recent defeats - culminating in a 3-2 defeat at Wolves on Saturday - harder to bear.

"Fans think I just go home and I'm not bothered. It can't be further from the truth," said Woodgate, 34.

"When you go home you are gutted. It means a lot to play for your hometown club, and at the moment when we're not winning games it's not nice.

"You've got to get on with it. I'm a footballer, it's what I'm paid to do and we need to start winning.

"It's hard for me to say anything to the fans because they'll think I'm full of rubbish, basically. What are they going to believe? We won't give up, keep on believing. Middlesbrough people don't give up."

Woodgate is likely to captain his side against Peterborough United tonight in a must-win fixture, with performances secondary to results at this stage of the season.

The centre-half added: "You can play well but if you get beat it's no good, is it? Manchester United can not play well yet win games.

"That's the way you've got to look at it. They're the top team and we've got to start playing that way.

"On Saturday, the plan was to try and win the game. We didn't win it so the plan didn't work.

"I thought we were playing really well first half, and we could have done with a few more goals. That didn't happen and we couldn't keep the ball out of our net.

"It's getting harder. We need to buck our ideas up, or we're not going to get anywhere near it. We have to keep on going, keep on striving to get where we want to be. At the moment it's not happening.

"You've got to try and be positive, keep encouraging the lads to play when their backs are against the wall. It's us who are losing the games, no-one else."

The only thing consoling Woodgate at present is the fact that teams around Middlesbrough are also dropping points, with only Hull City in the of top nine in the Championship taking all three points in the latest round of fixtures.

"That's the only positive. It was a big opportunity for us on Saturday to get closer to where we want to be, it didn't happen, we got beat and it's not good enough," added Woodgate.

Meanwhile, manager Mowbray had already moved on to Peterborough soon after the defeat at Molineux, and believes Darren Ferguson's side are better than their league position suggests.

"Peterborough are a very dangerous team," said Mowbray, who saw his side throw away a two-goal lead at London Road only for Ishmael Miller to fire in a winner in November.

"Having seen a lot of them I can say they create a lot of chances. They're a good football team. It's a mystery why they are where they are, but as we've found you can lose football matches in this league all too easily, defenders have to have total concentration to keep clean sheets.

"Peterborough is a dangerous game, more so when they're coming to us. They've got good midfielders who can pass the ball, let's see how we get on."

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