JONATHAN WOODGATE accepts the need for January reinforcements at Middlesbrough, and is confident Steve Gibson will back his attempts to address the shortcomings in his current squad.

Woodgate’s primary focus is tomorrow’s home game with Fulham, which will see him attempt to guide his side to what would be only a third victory of the season.

However, the Boro head coach also has half-an-eye on the January transfer window, which could prove crucial to his hopes of mounting a sustained surge up the table.

Boro’s summer transfer business was extremely limited, with a failure to recruit an attacker in the final 48 hours of the window resulting in a serious lack of depth up front.

Woodgate will be keen to address that in January, and while the room for financial manoeuvring will be limited given the restrictions imposed by the Football League’s Financial Fair Play regulations, the Teessider is confident there will be scope to make additions at the start of next year.

“The chairman is a clever man, he will know exactly what we need,” said Woodgate. “Whether we can do it is a different question, but let’s see in January, hopefully we can. He’s backed every manager that has been in charge here, and I don’t think it will be any different.

“I definitely think there’s scope to bring players in, but you never know what might happen. We might sell a few, a few might come in, who knows?

“We’ll need to get players in. As I’ve said before, it’s an unbalanced squad, but it’s there until January and I’m not complaining about it. It’s certainly not a case of making excuses. But I think we all know we’ll need to get some in.”

As well as looking to improve his squad, there have also been suggestions Woodgate could look to add some additional experience to his coaching staff in the next few months.

Not only is he embarking on his first senior coaching position, his assistant, Robbie Keane, is also in the early stages of his non-playing days. Throw in goalkeeping coach Danny Coyne, who was still a member of Shrewsbury Town’s playing squad as recently as two years ago, and you have an extremely young backroom team with little or no experience of leading a team fighting for their lives at the foot of the Championship.

In the past, Gibson has not been afraid to appoint a more experienced figure to work alongside a young head coach – think Terry Venables with Bryan Robson – but while he is happy to canvass outside opinion, Woodgate does not think he would benefit from having a ‘father figure’ alongside him on the touchline.

“People talk about experience on the coaching staff – we’ve got Leo (Percovich),” he said. “But do you need it? I’m really happy with my staff and it’s important you trust what you believe and what you do. If I need to speak people outside, I will, but at the minute, I’m really happy with my staff.”

Of more importance, in Woodgate’s eyes at least, is his relationship with his players, and while Boro have now gone six games without a win, the former skipper cannot detect any signs of anxiety or unhappiness.

While performances against Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham were desperate, Boro were unfortunate to lose against West Brom and should have taken all three points against Huddersfield.

Goalscoring is clearly an issue – Boro’s tally of 11 goals from 13 games makes them the joint-lowest scorers in the league along with basement boys Barnsley – but the switch to five at the back has helped shore things up defensively.

Woodgate took over promising adventurous, front-foot football, but while circumstances have dictated that a degree of pragmatism has become necessary, he is adamant he has not gone back on his beliefs.

“How do I want to play? High pressing,” he said. “What did we do against Huddersfield? We pressed high up the pitch. The only thing I’ve changed is the formation. We’re still playing in the same way, we’re still pressing and trying to pass the ball.

“The principles don’t really change, I still know how I want my team to play. It’s just the formation, we had to tweak it to make ourselves a little bit more solid. I still want to press, and we did that against West Brom in the right areas. We did it against Huddersfield, in the right areas. That’s not going to change.”

Aynsley Pears will retain his place in tomorrow’s starting line-up, with Darren Randolph facing up to a month on the sidelines. Randolph was forced to sit out the Huddersfield game after injuring his thigh, and scans have revealed some significant damage.

Randolph will definitely miss Boro’s next two games against Fulham and Derby County, and is a doubt for the Republic of Ireland’s must-win Euro 2020 qualifier against Denmark in the middle of next month.

“I’m not sure how long he’s going to be out. I don’t see it being long term, which is good for us and for Ireland. But two weeks? Four weeks? I’m not quite sure,” said Woodgate.

Pears enjoyed a relatively trouble-free debut at Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium, with the Terriers rarely threatening the Middlesbrough goal.

He is likely to be busier on Saturday, when Boro take on a Fulham side featuring midweek hat-trick hero Aleksandr Mitrovic, but Woodgate insists he has complete faith in the 21-year-old.

“Aynsley’s got a great temperament about him,” he said. “He didn’t have a lot to do in the game last night, but what he did have to do, he did well. He commanded his area, with good communication. I was pleased with him.

“I slept soundly on Tuesday night because I wasn’t worried at all about putting him in. I didn’t have a second’s hesitation about him.”

Fulham’s midweek win over Luton took them back up to seventh, and while Scott Parker’s side have proved somewhat inconsistent in the wake of their relegation from the top-flight, their squad boasts an array of established talent.

“They’ve got some very, very good players, although it hasn’t been easy for them at times,” said Woodgate. “It’s a different ball game altogether (in the Championship), a different game, different tempo, different standard. They have got a really good team though, probably, on paper, the best in the Championship.”