IT might be Middlesbrough’s expensively assembled attacking options creating a stir on Teesside, but Garry Monk wants to highlight just how impressed he has been with the backline during the positive start to the campaign.

Monk feels that Dael Fry has proven he can be a big hit for his team in the push for promotion this season after watching his first two outings at centre-back.

The teenager doesn’t turn 20 until the end of this month and he has looked at home alongside Ben Gibson since replacing the injured Daniel Ayala at the heart of the backline.

Both academy graduates have helped to keep consecutive clean sheets at the Riverside along with reliable full-back George Friend and summer signings Cyrus Christie and Darren Randolph.

And the way Middlesbrough have defended, even at Wolves where only a single mistake from Ayala proved costly, has impressed Monk as much as the improvements in the final third where more than £30m has been spent on forwards so far.

“Defensively I’ve been very pleased, we’ve had two clean sheets in a row and even at Wolves we limited them to very few chances. I put as much importance on defence as attack, you have to get the balance right,” said the Middlesbrough manager.

“I think Dael Fry has been excellent in the last two games for a young lad. Difficult circumstances for a young lad to come in, but he has huge potential and in the last two games he has looked like a seasoned professional.

“That’s credit to him and he has been like that since I walked through the door. It’s always exciting when you have young players like that, to see them get an opportunity they prove their worth is nice.

“Dael has Ben alongside him and Ben will help him too. Ben is only still young himself but he was a young player like that once and Dael was very good in the last two games.”

Fry’s emergence has not altered Monk’s pursuit of a new defender, though. A deal is in place for Birmingham defender Ryan Shotton but the chances of that going through before Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest have rescinded.

If Shotton does arrive that would not automatically lead to the late sale of Gibson back to the Premier League. Monk would like to keep the 24-year-old beyond this month, although knows there is interest in him after Middlesbrough rejected offers from West Brom for his services.

Asked if there was a definitive on whether Gibson will be here at the end of the window, Monk replied: “Definitive? Nothing is ever definitive in this world I have learned. But that’s not even an issue.

“I am not even focused on that. The team you can see I am sending out, the commitment is there, Ben included in that, they are all committed to what we are doing.

“We don’t have to sell anyone, we don’t want to sell anyone. That’s been made very clear by the owner (Steve Gibson) and that’s the same message by me. We are just looking forward to the season ahead.”

As well as the drive to land Shotton – effectively just waiting for Birmingham to add a replacement particularly after an injury sustained by Michael Morrison – Middlesbrough are still looking to bring in an extra forward.

They have missed out on Liverpool’s Sheyi Ojo this week after the forward moved to Fulham, but Monk is understood to have an alternative in mind and is confident of pulling a deal off.