North-East Sport
Search starts for Boro's Mr Versatile
8:00am Saturday 4th February 2012
MIDDLESBROUGH are on the look-out for a Mr Versatile to boost their promotion charge after accepting their recruitment plans for the rest of the season have had to change.
Boro boss Tony Mowbray last night conceded he has been forced in to a rethink after the crushing blow of having Scott McDonald ruled out for up to two months with medial knee ligament damage.
Mowbray, who bolstered his attacking ranks last month with the acquisition of Lukas Jutkiewicz, is now considering bringing in a loan player who has the attributes to play up front as well as in other roles.
Following the departure of winger Tarmo Kink, whose remaining 18 months of his contract were terminated this week after reaching an agreement over a pay-off, there is further room for manouevre on the transfer front.
And while the transfer window closed on Tuesday night, Mowbray can bring in emergency loans after Tuesday if he thinks it will benefit his squad.
But he is conscious of adding a new face too early, knowing the earlier he brings someone in on loan the earlier he will go back. If Middlesbrough did reach the play-offs, it could be that a loan player would no longer be at the Riverside Stadium.
"Footballers play in more than one position and in an ideal world for us, you would get a more versatile footballer who could probably play in a few positions," said Mowbray.
"We shall scour the market. Not for somebody you can stick a pin to and tell him he's a centre-forward and nothing else. We have had some conversations with some clubs before the window shut.
"But there is a difference between taking a player from window to window or on an emergency loan. With the latter case, you can only have a player for 93 days and if we were to get to a play-off final, we wouldn't be able to pick him if we sign him on Wednesday."
Middlesbrough head in today's game with Crystal Palace at the Riverside Stadium knowing they have slipped to five points behind the automatic promotion places in the Championship.
And while Boro had a quiet deadline day, the division's top two - West Ham and Southampton - strengthened their promotion bid with new faces. Mowbray, however, is not concerned.
He said: "I don't get too hung up about the last day of the transfer window. I think the televised media world seem to get hung up on it. They seem to think if you haven't done anything on the final day of the transfer window then something's wrong.
"We did our main business of the transfer window a week before it closed with (Lukas) Jutkiewicz. While you're always asking questions to see if something could be done, nothing really evolved on that final day.
"With the loan market, and particularly with Scott McDonald's injury, we need to try to explore to see what's out there. I think the group of players deserve to be given some help.
"If we bring somebody in, it won't be to replace somebody. It will be to make sure that when these injuries come along, you can rest somebody."
Despite a need to bring in a new face, Mowbray will have to work with what he has got for today's match. Only half a dozen players trained yesterday and another striker, Marvin Emnes, is nursing a hamstring problem.
"Bart Ogbeche has been back in training for the past two days but he won't be involved," said Mowbray, who is still without Nicky Bailey, Merouane Zemamma and Julio Arca, who is suspended, but chose not to reveal the other doubts.
"We have six games in 18 days including a five hour bus trip to Ipswich after the Sunderland FA Cup tie which could conceivably go into extra-time and penalties. In the cold light of day, these things get lost in the bigger picture.
"The biggest team with the biggest squads keep winning because they can put in one of three internationals to replace anyone who is injured. Smaller teams find it harder to keep going because their squad gets depleted."
Mowbray is satisfied with the way things have gone so far this season, even if Wednesday's point at Leicester was Middlesbrough's first of 2012.
"The players have done fantastically," he said. "When you put it into context with the losses of the squad, you can only look at the positives at what we've achieved with the squad that we've got compared to the group that we inherited.
"I just sit here and think that if we keep our better players fit then we will be fine. Going back to loans, if we don't replace quality with quality then we could slip out of it."