Midfielder Michael Tonge spoke of his desire to stay on at Elland Road after his loan spell came to an end with Leeds United on Saturday.

The midfielder, who joined from Stoke on loan in September, has made 22 appearances for the club and has been instrumental in a recent run of form that has produced five wins from six games,

Both manager and player are keen to make the move more permanent and much will depend on his parent club Stoke City, where Michael is contracted until the end of the season.

"I'm gutted it's finished," said the midfielder. "Obviously I can't play now until something's sorted because my loan has finished now.

"When you're on a roll you want to keep playing and hopefully the lads will keep playing like that and getting the points. I wanted to keep playing, but it's the way it works with 93 days.

"When I first came here we were thin on the ground with injuries, but now there's competition all over and that gets an extra 10 per cent out of people. If we can keep that together, we'll make a challenge.

"We've beaten some good sides and we know what we can do. We just need to keep going. We're desperate to get in the top-six and I'm desperate to come back and help the lads, so fingers crossed."

Michael signed off with another sterling performance as United beat Middlesbrough 2-1 at Elland Road on Saturday to maintain a fine run of form.

"It was a great result," said Michael. "I really enjoyed it. It was a tough week, we had a good start against Ipswich, obviously we lost against Chelsea, but we did well on Saturday.

"Boro are a good team, but we came back from 1-0 down, when we were on the rack we hung in there, and we went on and won it. Nobody wanted to concede a late goal, but it gives us five wins from six and we were on a run now."