What does the future hold for this former Premiership side?

Instead Boro must focus on developing their own players and fitting any potential signings in around a strict wage structure, both of which could stifle any realistic promotion push if players who will inevitable come in do not perform as so many recent signings have. Luckily for Boro, they have one of the best and most successful academy systems around, regularly churning out first team players and the odd International such as Downing, Johnson, Wheater and Cattermole in particular.

However they should be weary that as a Championship club their academy, like Leeds United’s did following their relegations, doesn’t become a feeder for bigger clubs who will want to poach their most promising young players.

Tony Mowbray is adamant that for any Middlesbrough success in the future, they will have to produce a team built around a core of promising local talent, highlighted by professional contracts been handed out recently to promising academy graduates Jake Fowler and Adam Reach whilst recent academy graduates such as Richard Smallwood and Ben Gibson have been given the opportunity to establish themselves in the first team.

Casting doubt on Boro’s capability to push for promotion any time soon Mowbray was recently quoted as saying that “There’s no pressure to get promotion, I don’t want to give people false hope” and “next season the team is going to get potentially weaker” as speculation and interest over the future of many first team stars increases.

Middlesbrough is a team in transition, coming off the back of arguably their most successful period in their history and having to accept that they cannot be considered one of England’s biggest clubs, it is understandable that Boro fans who have been spoilt during the mid-2000s want to see an immediate return back to England’s top flight. But the reality for Boro is that they must first establish themselves and build a team capable primarily of Championship survival and then look to push onwards and upwards.

There is no doubting that the club is now in the right hands and Mowbray and his Chairman Steve Gibson are both passionate, local men and are both wholly aware and capable of dealing with the challenges that face the club. I would predict that another two or three seasons in the Championship would allow them to build a sustainable team capable of promotion which would also see them survive in the Premier League but Boro fans shouldn’t be too disheartened by their club should this take longer. There is no quick fix in football and I’m afraid that for a club who had to wait over 125 years for their first major piece of silverware might have to be patient once again before they are a team capable of succeeding at English Football’s top table.

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