MIDDLESBROUGH are monitoring what happens with James Morrison over the next couple of weeks before deciding whether to follow up interest in their former player.

The Darlington-born playmaker’s season was ruined by injury and West Brom are understood to be deciding whether to trigger an option of a further year on his contract.

Morrison is due to become a free agent when his existing deal expires at the end of June and his history with Tony Pulis, who he worked with at The Hawthorns, makes him a target.

The 32-year-old is also likely to welcome a move back to the North-East at this stage of his career, having left Boro in 2007 when he never really wanted to in a £1.5m bargain deal.

Morrison impressed as a rising talent at the Riverside, having graduated through the club’s academy and he entered the history books by scoring Boro's first European goal on the road in the UEFA Cup against Banik Ostrava in 2004.

If the last nine months turn out to be his final season at West Brom then it ended in frustration; not only did they go down on a personal level he could not influence the situation because of his injuries.

After missing the first few games of the last season with a ligament injury, he suffered an Achilles problem in September and surgery didn’t have the desired effect so he missed the rest of the campaign.

Morrison has been working on his fitness and will be looking to nail down his future before the end of his contract – while West Brom could give him an extra year and it's not his decision.

Morrison can play centrally or on the right and provides the sort of experience Pulis will be looking to add to his ranks this summer.

There has been a lot of speculation surrounding the future of Grant Leadbitter over the past 24 hours, with suggestions he is going to be a target for his boyhood club Sunderland.

But Leadbitter still has two years remaining on his deal and he will be in no rush to drop down to League One despite losing his place in the final few matches of the season after suspension.

Leadbitter has also attracted interest from Nottingham Forest, where Middlesbrough’s former manager Aitor Karanka is in charge.