Boro Cannot Afford To Sell Downing To A Rival!
Last updated : 30 December 2008 By Boro Mad
The 24-year-old England winger has been linked with a £15m move to Tottenham in the forthcoming transfer window, and former Boro defender Jonathan Woodgate wants to link up with his old mate.
But selling your star players to a rival is simply ... not the done thing!
Could you imagine Chelsea selling John Terry to Man Utd, or Liverpool selling Steven Gerrard to Arsenal?
When asked what Boro would do if Spurs tried to sign Downing, Southgate replied: "We'll worry about that scenario as and when it happens.
"He's not a player we're looking to leave and we're not looking to lose our better players - that's key for us.
"We're not in position where we want to sell our players, especially to teams that are close to us.
"We need to keep the players we've got, work with the squad we've got and climb the table with those players.
"What we're hoping to do is put a lid on things as early as we can and say we're not looking to move players on and hopefully we haven't got the speculation going on right throughout January."