Pompey are flying high in the Barclays Premier League and have also made it through to the final of the FA Cup, where they are firm favourites to beat Cardiff City.

And O'Neil wishes his former club all the best - but insists he has no regrets about moving north.

"Obviously I still have a lot of friends down there and I want them top go on and win the cup, but for me it was good to get a change and get some new surroundings," O'Neil told Boro's official website.

"I've enjoyed my first season."

Middlesbrough have had an inconsistent campaign and are set to finish in the bottom half of the table, but O'Neil is looking to the future with optimism.

"We're not as far up the league as we would have liked, but we have had a couple of decent spells and if we can make those spells longer next year we will get higher up the league," said the midfielder.

"We have shown we can compete against the best and it would be good to finish it off with a few wins and make our league position a bit healthier."

O'Neil is also confident Brazilian striker Afonso Alves, who signed from Heerenveen in January, will take the Premier League by storm.

"I think next season is when you're really going to see the best of him," he said.

"It always was going to take time. There are always lifestyle changes when you move countries as well as the football to cope with, which I presume is massively different in this country than it is in Holland."