THE morning after the afternoon before, and Tony Pulis was not yet ready for conciliation. At the age of 60, the Middlesbrough manager has suffered enough transfer disappointments not to get too flustered by the sight of deals collapsing around him, but even so, Thursday’s events clearly left a bitter taste.

More than half-a-dozen targets were pursued; none of the prospective deals came to fruition. There is still time to rectify the situation, with the window for Football League loan deals not due to close until August 31, but as things stand, Pulis does not believe he presides over a squad that is capable of winning promotion.

To candidly say as much was a bold move, and also a carefully-considered one. Pulis stopped short of explicitly blaming either Steve Gibson or Neil Bausor for Thursday’s failure to sign Mo Besic, Yannick Bolasie, Jed Wallace, George Saville or Luke Freeman, to name just five of the players Boro were chasing, but the sub-text to his comments was clear.

He clearly feels he has done what was asked of him when he moved to the Riverside – making the play-offs, limiting his expenditure, raising money through players sales – now he is challenging those above him to live up to their side of the bargain.

“When I came into the football club, the club had spent a lot of money and there were a lot of things that had to be achieved,” said Pulis. “If you look at the seven months I’ve been at the football club, one of the things we tried to do was get in the play-offs. I think we were too far away to win automatic promotion, but we got in the play-offs and just fell short of that.

“Then we wanted to improve the players we have here, and I think you only have to look at Adama (Traore) and his performances and everything else.

“Then, we wanted to generate enough money from incomings to put the club on a sounder base. Again, I think we’ve achieved that with the sales of the players that have gone over the past few weeks, with (Ben) Gibson, (Patrick) Bamford and Adama.

“What we wanted to do, and what we needed to do, was improve in terms of bringing players in. We’ve not managed to do that, so that’s a disappointment. It’ll be a disappointment for everybody at the football club.”

But is it a disappointment that could have been avoided? Besic’s deal broke down when his representatives’ demands were deemed to be excessive, and Pulis was keen to stress that he does not blame the player for Thursday’s drama.

At this stage, it is hard to see how a compromise could be reached that would result in talks being resurrected, and Pulis’ curt reaction to a question about a possible loan deal spoke volumes. “I’m not sure – you’ll have to speak to Neil about that,” said the Boro boss, when asked directly about Besic’s situation.

It wasn’t quite an Aitor Karanka-style outburst, but it suggested a heightened degree of tension between Pulis and those above him that will only be resolved by the arrival of some loan additions.

Pulis feels his side is short of depth and quality in the attacking third in particular, and will be pushing for a breakthrough in the next week or so to avoid another day of scrambling around when the loan window closes at the end of the month.

“There’s been clarity about the players that we wanted,” he explained. “There’s been no changing our mind – we’ve just not been able to do it.

“You’ll have to speak to everybody why we haven’t been able to do it, the reasons for it. The fact is, cut out all the nonsense, we haven’t done it and that’s the disappointment. We’ve still got three weeks to hopefully get a bit of luck and get a few over the line.”

To add to Pulis’ disappointment, Jordan Hugill, the only player to arrive on Teesside in the final week of the window, is set to be unavailable until the end of September’s international break because of a hamstring problem.

The Teessider joined from West Ham, but will not be involved in this afternoon’s game with Birmingham City or the forthcoming matches against Bristol City, West Brom and Leeds in the league and Notts County in the first round of the Carabao Cup.

“He’s injured and won’t be fit for another two to three weeks,” said Pulis, who is set to name an unchanged side. “I think it’s a hamstring problem, which came a little bit off the side of his knee.

“It’s a disappointment for everybody, along with the fact that we’ll have to get him up to speed so that’s going to take a bit of time.”