AT the end of last season Tony Mowbray vowed to put the reasons why his side failed to challenge for promotion right, and the Middlesbrough manager hopes some acquisitions behind the scenes will help the club's quest to get back into the Premier League.

Mowbray identified numerous factors behind Boro's post-Christmas slide down the Championship table with a combination of injuries, bad form and a lack of goals all contributing to a disappointing 16th place finish.

Bad luck on the injury front certainly affected Mowbray's ability to select his best side and at one point the Boro boss was without 13 first-team squad members.

The amount of hamstring injuries raised eyebrows in particular with Mowbray even changing the location of where his squad trained at their Rockliffe Park training base to try and eradicate the problem.

But in a further move to avoid a repeat of last season's problems, Mowbray has brought in former Chelsea medical director Bryan English to oversee player injuries and rehabilitation.

English has been at the top level of football for several years and has worked under Jose Mourinho, Luis Filipo Scolari and Carlo Ancelotti during his time at Stamford Bridge.

He will oversee Boro's pre-season training programme and advise Mowbray on the fitness aspects of his players' preparation as they get ready for another season in the second tier of English football.

The medical expert will also work closely with the club's existing sports science team to ensure a repeat of last season's injury epidemic won't happen again.

"We've addressed the areas we believe were crucial in what happened, not just last season but the season before when we had another similar outcome," explained Mowbray.

"We've managed to bring in Bryan as a consultant for two or three days a week. He's a medical and sports science expert. He worked under Mourinho at Chelsea, as well as Scolari and Ancelotti right at the very very top of football. He brings huge experience."

Over the past few years, chairman Steve Gibson has had to make considerable cutbacks throughout the club in order to stabilise its finances and the sports science department was one affected too much, admits Mowbray.

He said: "I think the chairman's on record saying that we probably cut too deep in those areas.

"We lost our head of medicine Grant Downie a few seasons ago when I arrived and we've missed the experience he had at knowing when somebody might be ready to come back from injury.

"I think it's an experience thing, a knowledge thing of working at the best practice. Chris Moseley and Peter Hood have been ultimate professionals if their job being one head of sports science and one of medical and I think we're going to help them develop and get more experience from Bryan English.

"There were too many injuries here last season. He'll bring his vast knowledge and experience to us."

And it's not just personnel Mowbray has brought in to face the problem, the club has also invested in some new equipment to keep track of players' work rate during training.

"We've added some technology to the department and invested in GPS systems to show how much running players are doing in training so we can see the volume of work they are doing during the week," Mowbray revealed.

"It's really about the fine detail of training and fitness. In my mind that was a crucial part last season, whether it was the injures or why were players, who had never had hamstring injuries before, pulling up with them.

"You've also got to be thorough when thinking about the rehabilitation and the right time to integrate them back into the team."

Mowbray is hoping to sign former Sunderland midfielder Dean Whitehead, and admitted the club had decided not to take up the option of an extra year on Andre Bikey's contract.