MIDDLESBROUGH are close to tying up a three-year deal for David Nugent, with Aitor Karanka expressing confidence that the club are poised to sign the “right player” to spearhead their promotion push.

Leicester accepted Boro’s £4m offer for Nugent over the weekend, and the Teessiders’ recruitment team have spent the last two days attempting to persuade the former England international to drop down to the Championship.

Those discussions are understood to have resulted in a positive resolution, and Nugent is set to travel to the North-East before the weekend to undergo a medical and finalise the personal terms of a deal that will take Middlesbrough’s summer spending beyond the £12m mark.

An additional signing is also in the offing, with Karanka having confirmed his interest in AC Milan goalkeeper Michael Agazzi.

Nugent has been a Boro target for a number of years, with their interest in the 30-year-old stretching back to his early days with Preston. He made a £6m move to Portsmouth in 2007, joined Leicester in 2011, and scored five goals in 29 Premier League appearances for the Foxes last season.

The Teessiders have pursued a number of attacking targets this summer, but a package worth £12m was rejected for Blackburn striker Jordan Rhodes, while Crystal Palace’s Dwight Gayle was yesterday the subject of a successful £6m bid from Bristol City.

“I don’t want to spend crazy money or bring the wrong player in, but we are working and I am sure the right player will arrive,” said Karanka, ahead of this evening’s Capital One Cup first-round tie with Oldham Athletic. “I don’t know when, but eventually, we will get there.

“I don’t want to speak about names because, I don’t know where and when, but someone said that we offered £14m for Jordan Rhodes and that is not true. But we have to find the right one and we are working very well. I hope we are close to signing the right one.”

As well as pursuing a new centre-forward, Karanka is also hoping to increase his goalkeeping options with the addition of Agazzi.

Having missed out on Shay Given, who rebuffed Boro’s advances in order to join Stoke City earlier in the summer, Karanka has been assessing a number of potential rivals to Dimi Konstantopoulos and Tomas Mejias.

Agazzi, a 31-year-old who joined AC Milan from Chievo last summer but who is still to make his debut for the Serie A side, currently tops his wanted list, although it remains to be seen whether the Italian can be persuaded to leave his homeland.

“I know him because I know a lot of players,” said Karanka. “Goalkeeper is a position we want to strengthen. We have Dimi and Tomas now, but we want another one.

“He is a goalkeeper who is on our list. We have other keepers on our list as well, and we have to find the right one.”

Cristhian Stuani was the most recent player to join Middlesbrough when he completed a £3.6m move from Espanyol at the end of last week, and having come off the substitutes’ bench in Sunday’s goalless draw at Preston, the Uruguayan is set to make his first Boro start tonight.

He played as both a central striker and wide attacker in Spain, but while his versatility is regarded as a key asset, Karanka views him primarily as a leader of the line.

“Cristhian has been training with us for more than two weeks and is ready to start,” he said. “His papers are ready, and I am thinking about putting him on the pitch against Oldham.

“He is a very good player. I wanted him last season, but it was impossible to do that. We managed to get him this summer, and it’s important to have a player who has experience and has scored goals in Spain.

“He scored 12 goals last season, but he only played 20 or 25 games, so his numbers are very good. I hope that as a mature and experienced player, he can settle in quickly and start scoring goals as soon as possible.

“When he played as a striker in Spain in the second division, he scored 24 goals. At Espanyol he played as more of a winger, but I think his best position is as a striker.

“I signed him because he is a striker who can also play in other positions, like Jelle Vossen and Patrick Bamford last season. They were strikers, but Jelle played as a number ten sometimes and Patrick played as a winger. He (Stuani) gives me quite a few alternatives and that is important.”

Karanka will make a number of changes for this evening’s game, with the likes of Emilio Nsue, James Husband, Adam Forshaw and Mustapha Carayol all under consideration for a starting spot.

Ben Gibson remains unavailable because of injury, while Boro have given Oldham permission to name Jonathan Burn in their starting line-up despite the defender being on a six-month loan from the Riverside.

“We played Oldham away last season and it was difficult,” said Karanka. “We have to go there this time thinking it will be another difficult game. We had a game on Sunday, and we have another game on Saturday (against Bolton), but we have a good squad and I am going to put out a very good XI.”

Middlesbrough (possible line-up): Mejias; Nsue, Fry, Ayala, Husband; Leadbitter, Forshaw; Carayol, Downing, Reach; Stuani.