AITOR KARANKA can understand why his Championship rivals are “jealous” of the squad he has assembled at Middlesbrough, and concedes he will be “the only person to blame” if the Teessiders fail to win promotion to the Premier League this season.

Despite already sitting in one of the two automatic promotion positions, Boro brought in five new players during last month’s transfer window, with their spending spree culminating in the £9m deadline-day capture of striker Jordan Rhodes.

Rhodes will make his Boro debut against his former employers Blackburn Rovers tomorrow, potentially starting on the substitutes’ bench, and the Scotsman’s arrival has been interpreted in a number of quarters as the final piece of the club’s promotion jigsaw.

Karanka has described the current Boro squad as the “best” in the Championship, and readily admits that a failure to secure promotion would be a massive disappointment.

Last season, the Teessiders missed out on a place in the Premier League when they lost to Norwich City in the play-off final, and having been backed to the hilt in the last few weeks, the Spaniard will accept sole responsibility if there is a similar failure in the next three months.

“If I was saying at the beginning of the season that I had the best squad I could imagine, then what can I say today,” said Karanka. “I can understand how jealous other managers are of me because I am here.

“The pressure is on me now, and I know that. It is not a problem – I am really pleased to take this pressure with this team. If at the end of the season, we do not get promotion with this squad – whether automatically or through the play-offs – I will say that it was my mistake.

“I will not talk about excuses or other teams. No, if we don’t get promotion this season with this squad, it will be because I have made mistakes.

“The pressure is on me, but there was more pressure when we lost to Brighton in my first season here and then we had to go to play against Millwall with the squad we had then.

“When I first came here, our striker was Curtis Main. Now, it is David Nugent and Jordan Rhodes. The team is improving a lot, so now we have to show everybody how good we are.”

Rhodes’ signature was confirmed after a weekend of tortuous negotiations that saw a deal for the striker break down on Sunday afternoon, only to be resurrected after some frantic talks on Monday morning.

Boro’s interest in the striker, who celebrates his 26th birthday today, goes back a lot further than that though, and the Teessiders thought they had secured a deal with Blackburn last summer, only to see a succession of offers rejected.

Rhodes submitted a formal transfer request in an attempt to force through a move to the Riverside before the start of the season, but while Boro officials never lost their admiration for the Scotland international, Karanka did not go into last month’s transfer window expecting to sign him.

His priorities initially lay elsewhere, and while he was adamant he needed to sign Ritchie De Laet, Kike Sola, Julien De Sart and Gaston Ramirez to fill gaps in his squad, it was chairman Steve Gibson’s deadline-day largesse that led to Rhodes arriving through the entrance door.

“We tried in August, but were unable to bring Jordan here,” said Karanka. “When we started to work on bringing in new players at the start of January, he wasn’t on the list because I didn’t want to spend that amount of money when I needed players in other positions.

“I needed a midfielder and a defender, and then when Diego (Fabbrini) left, we needed a number ten. For that reason, Jordan wasn’t on the list.

“At the start of January 31, I had my squad completely perfect, and then the chairman arrived on the last day with Jordan Rhodes. For that reason, what can I say about him once again? We had everything, but then Steve arrived with a big surprise.”

Rhodes has scored 20 or more goals in each season since 2009, but despite his impressive record with Huddersfield and Blackburn, he has never played in the Premier League.

The likes of Rudy Gestede, a former team-mate at Ewood Park, Benik Afobe and even Lee Tomlin have been offered moves from the Championship to the top-flight, and Karanka admits he cannot understand why no one has gambled on Rhodes given his proving goalscoring pedigree.

“A person like me from Spain, when you see Jordan’s goalscoring numbers and find out that he has never played in the Premier League, it is a surprise,” said the Boro boss. “I don’t know why.

“I have just been here for two years and I am still learning. The market here is different, but the main thing for me is that the player is here now, so let’s see what happens in the future.”

While Rhodes could well find himself on the bench tomorrow, De Laet and Ramirez are being lined up for places in the starting line-up.

De Laet is expected to start at left-back, with George Friend facing up to another month on the sidelines after damaging his shoulder in the 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest.