MIDDLESBROUGH manager Gareth Southgate believes the shock FA Cup exit at the hands of Cardiff City has acted as a watershed for the club.

Boro's contest with the Championship side looked nothing more than a formality when they were pulled out of the hat for the sixth round tie at the Riverside.

But Cardiff had other thoughts and the game became anything but a formality, and as a consequence the Bluebirds embarrassed their Premier League opponents to book a place in the last four of the competition.

The Welsh side now face Portsmouth at Wembley next month to contest the final. And Middlesbrough know only too well how it could have been them on the verge of an historic FA Cup triumph had they not saved their worst performance of the season for Dave Jones' side.

The Teessiders could have quite easily sunk after suffering the disappointment of that gutwrenching defeat, but since then, luckily for the team and supporters alike, they've swum as if their lives have depended upon it.

Boro have lost only once since their cup upset - a narrow reversal at Chelsea - and Southgate saw yet another inspired performance from his charges at Tottenham, in yet another game they arguably deserved to win.

Middlesbrough started slowly at Spurs, despite Afonso Alves netting an offside goal after a minute, before becoming stronger as the game went on against their higher placed Premier League opponents.

But Boro know they wasted a glorious opportunity to record an all important away victory to ensure they were mathematically safer from avoiding the drop.

Both Alves and Jeremie Aliadiere missed gilt-edged chances in the last ten minutes to put the game to bed, after Stewart Downing cancelled out Jonathan Grounds' first half own goal. It has been the story of just about all of Boro's recent Premier League contests since crashing out of the FA Cup.

Had the Teessiders made the most of those missed opportunities against Aston Villa, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United then a late charge for a UEFA Cup slot might have been on the cards - given Boro's run in - instead of flirting with relegation.

Yet despite being disappointed with Middlesbrough's first half performance in North London Southgate was encouraged by his side's second half surge, the team's recent change in mentality and next season's Premier League campaign.

"That's what we want to do in this closing spell of the season,"

admitted the Boro boss who has seen his side lose only once in six.

"I've talked about changing the mentality of the club and the issue with the mentality was shown in the first half because the top teams don't put in performances like that.

"They are consistent. They deliver every week and we've been a bit middle of the table as a club over the last few years. We've sort of just done enough and we want to change, and that means raising the standards across the board.

"So I'm pleased that we've showed the fighting spirit to come back last week and we did it again on Saturday.

"But if we can perform as we did against the (Manchester) Uniteds, the Arsenals, the (Aston) Villas away we should be able to do it against the lesser teams. We did at Chelsea for a half or 35 minutes - and we've got the talent to do a little bit more I think."

Southgate is confident supporters will see a lot more of this next term as he believes his young charges will be better prepared and mentally tougher after this season's challenging and stuttering campaign.

He said: "I think we will be a lot better for the experience of this season and lots of young players will develop mentally and physically.

"One of the great things that we've had to deal with is the negative expectations at the start of the year, where we sold our two strikers (Mark Viduka and Yakubu), and locally there was a lot of doom and gloom that we would go down.

"We got injuries to all of our other strikers, we didn't cope with that and it became a downward spiral of negative thoughts.

"We've shown that we are more than capable of competing in this league, there is still a lot of work to be done between now and the end of the season, but I think we've got a stronger platform to build on than we had at this time last season."