Neil Warnock provides irritating Middlesbrough transfer update | OneFootball

Middlesbrough manager Neil Warnock has revealed that an attempt to sign a free-agent over the international break failed due to financial reasons, but also insisted they will keep looking to see if more options emerge.

Boro are experiencing a challenging period at the moment in terms of the numbers that they have available within their squad.

The likes of Grant Hall, Dael Fry, Marc Bola and Anfernee Dijksteel have all been suffering with injury issues recently to vastly reduce the options available to Warnock.

As a result, Middlesbrough have been searching to make some signings on free transfers, but they have yet to make any major progress in that department.

That means that, for now, Warnock is going to have to try and get the very best out of his limited available options.

Speaking to the Northern Echo, Warnock has revealed that Middlesbrough were hoping to tie up a deal for a free-agent during the international break but that move fell through due to their financial demands.

He did add though that Boro will keep looking to see what is out there and they will consider signing a player if it meets their wage structure.

He said: “We were hoping to get one or two free agents in but we weren’t able to.

“We couldn’t quite financially agree a deal with one.

“So we have to go with what we’ve got. I can’t see it (the deal) now after this week if I’m honest.

“We just couldn’t financially get the deal done and had to leave that.

“We’re still looking at one or two, but fitness-wise is the issue. We’re in the middle of October now and these lads haven’t played. So it’s catch-22 really.

“If somebody cropped up who we thought was fit enough, we’d consider it if it fitted into our wage structure.”

The verdict

You do have to feel for Warnock at the moment because he is doing all that he can to get the maximum out of his limited number of options.

Middlesbrough’s form in the Championship has suffered partly due to the list of injury issues that they are contending with at the moment.

However, that can only be a justification for so long and eventually the buck will stop with him if they can not turn their form around.

Signing free-agents at this point in the season is never an easy challenge to say the least.

It seems that Middlesbrough were hopeful over signing one player, but that has now gone away because they could not match their wage requirements.

Boro are sensible not to break their wage structure just to fix a temporary issue with their squad.

The hope will be that they can be rewarded for that with another player coming into their sights who fits their wages better.