Southgate wants to inflict City anxiety attack

Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate wants to take advantage of the anxiety at Manchester City when he faces his former England team-mate Stuart Pearce at Eastlands.

Southgate and Pearce both have the ignominy of missing an England penalty in a tournament shoot-out - they famously featured in a pizza advertisement following Southgate's Euro 96 miss - but that is not all they share.

Both have been under pressure at times this season in their respective roles, although Southgate's mixed start to his rookie season in charge at the Riverside Stadium improved significantly with recent back-to-back wins.

City boss Pearce, meanwhile, is looking for his side to bounce back after their 4-0 defeat at Wigan, a result which Southgate believes will affect the start of the Monday evening clash.

"It was a bad day for them, I'm sure they're looking for a reaction and I'm sure they will get one," said Southgate ahead of the Premiership encounter.

"We know they will start the game at a good pace and we want to do exactly the same because if we get at them there is bound to be bit of anxiety in the ground after what has happened to them last week."

Pearce, whose side have won just twice this season and have never beaten Boro in the Premiership, recently called for a managerial transfer window, hypothetically making it impossible for a club to dismiss their boss outside two set periods.

Southgate, who earmarked Pearce as a future manager when they were England team-mates, believes the City boss will remain calm despite the pressure he appears to be under.

"I'm sure Stuart doesn't feel under pressure, I didn't and you just need time to get your ideas across, get your full team out and hope things progress in the right way," Southgate said.

"Stuart has been through the mill as a player and knows everything it entails, so he will be very calm and level-headed about what's going on, I'm sure."

Southgate added: "External pressure seems to be brought on much earlier now because of the phone-ins and the internet, there are so many media outlets that when a team has a couple of bad results they're viewed upon as a club in crisis - they win and it moves on to the next club.

"As long as you keep a sense of perspective to what's going on, it doesn't bother you too much.

"Nobody has lost their job in the Premiership this season, it was a while before a change of managers last season, so the chairmen are realising there isn't a quick-term fix."

The two managers are inexperienced in their current roles, and Southgate admits there is a change in mentality where tough decisions mean he is no longer liked by everyone at the club.

"The way they look at you is different," he said. "Leaving people out of the team is a difficult thing to do but you get toughened to the fact that you have to make decisions that are right for the club and right for the team.

"You can't be everybody's friend, it's as simple as that. I'm employed to make decisions and have to do the right thing.

"When you are the person picking the team, inevitably some of them are going to have the hump with you at times. At first I was taken aback by that but you realise it's part and parcel of the game and you can't let it affect your decisions."

Southgate admits he is still learning about what his job entails, and along with Pearce is one of the Premiership's exciting British managerial prospects, even if they have been under varying degrees of pressure this season.

"We've always kept in contact from our days playing with England, we played many times for England and I got on very well with him," Southgate said.

"I've got tremendous respect for him as a man and he was someone who was an inspiration to play alongside. We had similar views on football and our approach to the game and training was quite similar so we kept in contact before we were both managers and since."