TONY PULIS thinks Middlesbrough’s failure to win half of their home games this season has not been helped by summer frustration in the transfer market when Adama Traore was not replaced.

The Spanish winger was a key part of Pulis’ game plan in his first six months after taking over from Garry Monk a year ago, but he completed an £18m move to Wolves during the last window.

Despite admitting Boro tried unsuccessfully to sign Tammy Abrahams and Yannick Bolasie, who both moved to Aston Villa instead, Pulis has never really had the options with speed to call on that he would have liked.

Now the Boro boss has suggested that those issues have been part of his side’s problems at the Riverside Stadium in recent months, as they head into today’s visit of Blackburn with just one win from their last six in front of the Teesside faithful.

Pulis said: “There’s a reason for that and that’s that teams sit in. That’s when you need a little more pace, more creativity in the final third. We have lost that a little with Adama going. If you look at when I came here last year, we played him all the time.

“Adama gave us that threat and it worried teams. I don’t think we have that electric pace, someone we can give it to. We have to get on with it, we were in the market, it’s not as if we were a club that hasn’t tried. We have tried.

“If I was stood here now saying ‘we didn’t do this, we didn’t do that’, then yes you can have a moan and a groan but we were in for Bolasie, we were in for Abrahams. We were in for quite a few others.

“It just didn’t happen, they preferred to go elsewhere. More so for where the clubs were based than anything else, which is what you have to accept. That’s part and parcel of being in this area.”

Pulis will go into the January window looking to make amends and finally recruit the options he felt was necessary in the summer. He still insists he will not lower his sights too far. He didn’t want to predict how many will join or leave.

He said: “We are one of a lot of clubs at this level that are looking for the ones that can make a difference. We’ve got to be lucky. We’ve got to be a little bit clever but we’ve got to be lucky as well.

“We suck and see. It is finding out what is out there first, what deals people will do. Then I think we suck and see to see where we can go.

“How can you tell how big January will be (in terms of outs and ins)? I tell you this now, there will be nobody leaving this football club unless we can bring people in, no chance.

“We haven’t had any interest in anyone whatsoever and, like is say, even if we do, I will do what is in the best interests of this football club.”

When the players were off on Wednesday, Pulis headed to London for meetings to discuss possible transfer deals.

“I spent most of the day talking to people about different things. It’s difficult because for what we want and what we need it’s only a small market,” he said.

“And we want good character as well, that’s always very, very important to me, people have got the right characteristics, they want to play for this football club, not just coming for other things. They are coming here to win football games and do their best.”

Two players who could move on are Martin Braithwaite and Britt Assombalonga, if the right offers are made. Neither have really grasped the opportunity to impress Pulis over the long term, just in fits and starts.

Pulis said: “As with every player you hope they get their heads down and they work hard and they perform, they do what they are paid for and they perform.

“If, buts and maybes. You can’t hide the fact that the club spent a lot of money on a few players at this football club to come and score goals and the top end of the pitch, if you look at it on paper, there’s some top names there and that’s what you want and that’s what we need, we need goalscorers but it’s all right saying and looking at things, people have got to go out and do it.”