McClaren wants Boro to bounce back

Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren admits the rigors of European football has affected his players this season.

However, heading into tomorrow’s Barclays Premiership clash with Manchester City, he is confident his side can bounce back from successive defeats and get their campaign back on track.

Defeats against Villarreal and Tottenham in their last two games have come as a setback to the Teessiders, who made an impressive start to the season.

McClaren expected his side to tire, and believes other teams competing in Europe will feel the pace soon.

“It’s inevitable,” he said. “I think you’ll see that through the season from all the clubs.

“You look at the likes of Arsenal now, you look at the likes of Manchester United, there is always a period or always one or two games in which inevitably games catch up and you don’t get the rub of the green and sometimes you lose.

“But it is how you bounce back and how you come back. We have had this before - people said after we got beat by Chelsea, the next game was Manchester United and we were going to be struggling.

“But we managed to recover and go on a great run, which has just ended, and we say to the players we need to go on another run.”

Boro have not finished higher than ninth in the Premiership but are among the teams looking to finish in the European places behind leaders Chelsea and champions Arsenal.

McClaren is wary of complacency from his players – and wants his squad to show character after successive defeats.

“That’s the most important thing, but I don’t think that’s a problem with this squad, getting carried away and getting complacent,” said McClaren.

“It really is just a case of three games a week since the beginning of the season can catch up. The character now is how we bounce back.”

Bouncing back is a character trait of McClaren’s opposite number at Manchester City.

Kevin Keegan’s side have recovered from a poor start to the season to string together a run of five league games without defeat, including victories over Portsmouth and Aston Villa in their last two matches.

“Kevin plays football in the right way, in the right spirit,” said McClaren. “They are always entertaining games and you know they are always going to be football matches.

“He is a breath of fresh air to the Premier League, not just in his approach and his comments, but also in the way his sides play. They always go out to win, always go out to score goals.

“He has recovered from a bad situation to put Manchester City on 20 points and up there in the top 10, and it can only get better for them.”

One of the main reasons for City’s blossoming season has been the form of Shaun Wright-Phillips, who has forced his way into the England squad.

With first-choice left-back Franck Queudrue starting a three-match ban following his dismissal at Tottenham, Bolo Zenden, Colin Cooper, Tony McMahon or the fit-again Michael Reiziger could be asked to try to shackle him.

Skipper Gareth Southgate believes marking the winger will be a major task.

“We don’t have a natural replacement for Franck, so I guess it will be somebody playing out of position whether it be Bolo, Colin or Tony. I think it will be a re-shuffle,” he said.

“It is not ideal for this game to be playing out of position because they will be up against Shaun Wright-Phillips.”