Gareth Southgate has admitted his Middlesbrough masterplan remains a work in progress two years into his reign.

The former England defender saw his side finally put an end to their relegation fears with a 2-0 Barclays Premier League win over Portsmouth which spared them and their fans an uncomfortable closing day to a difficult campaign. But as he breathed a sigh of relief, Southgate's mind was already turning to the future and the work that needs to be done to take the club to the next level.

The loss of strikers Mark Viduka and Ayegbeni Yakubu last summer blew a sizeable hole in his squad, and injuries since have not helped. However, Southgate has been pleased with the way his players have responded to the challenges with which they have been presented, and while he knows there are mountains to be climbed, he is happy that they are on the right track. Asked what lessons he has learnt, he said: "We will still be here at midnight.

"We have learnt a lot. There has been a lot of soul-searching. Let's be honest, we got safe on the penultimate Saturday last year and we lost 35 goals out of the team, one striker in the summer and one who decided two weeks into the start of the season he'd had enough.

"They are big things to deal with aside from the injury setbacks which most clubs have. I've got to decide whether we had the right size of squad, whether we had enough to be able to cope with that, whether we were a bit too young.

"But all those things are decisions that we can now make knowing we are safe in this league. The overhaul of the squad was always going to be very difficult because of the age of lots of the players over the last two years, and that has to continue. But it was critical we stayed in this division while we achieved that overhaul. The wage bill is now a lot more manageable than it was, and lots of those young players are now on long-term contracts, so we've got saleable assets as well should we need them."