GARRY MONK has welcomed the decision by Premier League clubs to vote for the transfer window to close before the start of next season, with the English Football League expected to follow suit.

Monk has been among those to have complained about the fact players can move on once the season is underway, having been forced to endure an August when many of his players were the subject of interest from other clubs.

Boro fought off attention to retainBen Gibson, Rudy Gestede, Adama Traore and Grant Leadbitter, among others.

Monk will hope to be in the top-flight next season and the window close at 5pm on the Thursday before the opening weekend.

After confirmation of yesterday’s Premier League vote, the EFL clubs are expected to hold their own.

And Monk said: “It’s a beautiful thing that the window has shut. It’s great. Transfer windows are hard to work in, do your business in, it’s become a circus. It is what it is and you have to make the best of it and I think we have done that.

“Once it has closed it takes away some of the speculation, doubts. It is nice to be able to close grey areas. This is what it is now and they know that is what we are focused on.

“I would welcome the window being closed before the start of the season. Everyone asks what the implications are if it happens and for other clubs, but that’s for everyone to just deal with.

“It should be that way. No team should kick off and play six games and still have speculation about what your squad is. Stupid. Ridiculous. Any other implications just need to be dealt with and people will need to get on with it.”

Monk brought in Ryan Shotton from Birmingham and Marvin Johnson from Oxford before last week’s deadline, and those followed a hectic summer when there have been plenty players on the move.

And perhaps one of the best pieces of business could prove to be the decision to keep hold of Gibson, when a number of top-flight clubs were interested in prising him away from his hometown club.

West Brom had a couple of substantial offers rejected, but his uncle Steve Gibson, the Middlesbrough chairman, always maintained he would not be sold.

The centre-back was left out of the recent England squad by Gareth Southgate, however, and there have been suggestions that playing in the Championship will reduce Gibson’s chances of making it to the World Cup next summer.

Monk said: “It’s not my concern. My concern is to get the best Ben Gibson on the pitch, make him a better player like I will with all of the players.

“The other side of it are the ambitions of the players, understanding what they want to achieve, but for me it’s about the daily process.

“Getting the best out of them each and every day, telling them this is how you do it. I need to get what’s best for Middlesbrough Football Club by getting the best out of the players here.”

Gibson has played in all five of the opening Championship matches and he too is relieved that the window has closed so he can purely concentrate on playing.

The 24-year-old told the club’s website: “The window has shut, that’s probably the best thing that can happen. There’s been a lot of uncertainty around a lot of the players, that’s not good for the players or the manager.

“There has been a big turnaround in personnel here like we have said and the manager is working hard to ensure we develop his style.

“We expected more points so far, we are working behind the scenes to make sure it does click and it will click. There are a lot of new players, that doesn’t click overnight. There is no-one here who is a miracle worker, that’s natural.”

At Bolton tomorrow, Boro will be without striker Rudy Gestede, who is facing a spell on the sidelines after a “freak” training ground collision left him hospitalised.

The former striker has had surgery on a leg after bleeding following a clash during a session at Rockliffe Park last Saturday.

He remains in hospital, waiting to learn how long he is to be unavailable. With seven matches scheduled this month, he will do well to figure in any of those.

Monk said: “It was a bit of a freak. He trained Saturday, picked up a dead leg after a clash of a knee on to his thigh. It’s been more excessively bleeding than normal.

“He had a minor operation to relieve the pressure on his thigh. We don’t know the extent or the length of time he will be out. I have seen many dead legs but this was quite a freak one, a re-bleed if you like. We think it could be sooner rather than later, but until it has fully stopped we will not know.”

Monk also confirmed that £9m striker Martin Braithwaite remains unavailable with a hamstring strain and he hopes to have him in training by the end of next week.