It’s a waiting game for boss Mowbray (From The Northern Echo)

It’s a waiting game for boss Mowbray

11:31am Tuesday 31st January 2012 in Middlesbrough By Paul Fraser, Chief Football Writer

MIDDLESBROUGH will spend the coming hours waiting to hear if the phone rings before plotting a move in the loan market.

While Bristol City are in the hunt for defender Stephen Mc- Manus, Boro are not expecting any major comings or goings on deadline day.

And manager Tony Mowbray is prepared to wait and see what happens as he will still be able to bring in a new recruit or two after the window has closed.

Football League clubs can make emergency loan signings in a week’s time and that is likely to be when Mowbray adds to his squad.

Boro, keen to keep their prize assets for the rest of the season, are not in a financial position to go out and spend in the hope of strengthening their promotion push.

And barring any ridiculous late offers for key players which they are likely to turn down at this late stage anyway, Boro look set to hit February 1 with the same group of players.

Danny Coyne’s calf problem resurfaced during Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Sunderland in the FA Cup, meaning Middlesbrough could be short of goalkeepers if Jason Steele does not recover from his injury in time to face Leicester tomorrow night.

Mowbray, who has spent around £1.5m on striker Lukas Jutkiewicz this month, considered bringing in a goalkeeper on loan, with the likes of Newcastle’s Steve Harper and Sunderland’s Keiren Westwood seemingly available.

However, he is hopeful Steele will face either Leicester or Crystal Palace on Saturday, having had encouraging news about his thigh and wrist problems.

There has been interest in Tarmo Kink from around Europe, but so far nothing has materialised and he looks set to stay.

Kink has been on the fringes this season and, like McManus, was not in the matchday squad of 18 that took on Sunderland at the weekend.

Middlesbrough could quite easily have left the Stadium of Light with a fifth round tie with Arsenal in the bag, instead the neighbours go headto- head again at the Riverside Wednesday.

Tomorrow’s trip to the Walkers Stadium is the first of six matches inside 18 days and midfielder Barry Robson thinks the Boro squad have shown they have the ability to return to the top-flight.

“There was nothing between the two teams, it was pretty even throughout,” he said. “Sunderland play in the Premier League, they are up there on merit and we need to show we can be up there on merit too.

“They have some good players, but we have some good players too. We have some players that have played at a higher level, so we knew what to expect.

“The cups are great, we all want to be involved in them. I know people say the league is more important at the moment, which it is, and it is maybe a slight distraction because we have not got a huge squad, but we will see where the games take us.

“We have a big game at Leicester on Wednesday night and the replay is out of our minds at the moment. We will look forward to Leicester and we hope we can get back to the Premier League this season too.”

Robson was a frustrated figure at the Stadium of Light when he helped cancel out his own opening goal when his mistake led to Fraizer Campbell’s leveller.

He put the man of the match champagne he was given by ITV straight in the bin. He said: “To sum my day up, it was a mistake I made and it was frustrating.

“It cost us in the end because we would have won otherwise.

But all players make mistakes, even Steven Gerrard makes mistakes and he’s a far better player than me.

“I’m disappointed for the boys but hopefully I will make it up for in the second game. I don’t like making mistakes, I take it on the chin, you have to play the game and you can’t hide from it."