NEIL WARNOCK has retrained his sights on securing a loan deal for Yannick Bolasie next month, and is desperate to avoid a repeat of the last-minute scrambling that saw a proposed transfer for the Everton winger collapse on deadline day in October.

While Middlesbrough’s financial position remains difficult in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Warnock is hopeful Steve Gibson will sanction the loan signing of a couple of new recruits at the turn of the year.

Bolasie came close to joining Boro in October, only for a proposed season-long loan deal to have broken down at the final minute, but having been omitted from Carlo Ancelotti’s Premier League squad at Goodison Park, the 31-year-old remains keen to leave Merseyside next month.

Ideally, Warnock would like to sign two attacking wide players when the transfer window reopens, and Bolasie’s name remains at the top of his wanted list.

“I’d have Yannick tomorrow, everybody knows that,” said the Boro boss, ahead of this afternoon’s home game with Millwall. “But I don’t know whether there are conversations going on at the moment.

“I hope it can be done. I’ve not heard anything at the moment, but Steve knows we need a bit of help in those positions. You look at the teams we’re playing against, and most of them have got good wide players. We need a bit of help in that respect, and hopefully we can come up with something.

“We need attacking wide players that are going to create goals. If you told me I couldn’t do anything else but get two wide players, I’d be okay with that because that’s the priority.

“Not necessarily wingers, but people that can come in and contribute to goals, and are more naturally looking for goals rather than asking full-backs to play there where they’re not naturally going to get in the box. They’re doing their best – I can’t criticise that – but we need a bit of help in those positions.”

Warnock was critical of Bolasie and his agent in the wake of October’s deadline-day drama, claiming there were ‘things we should have known’ that were not disclosed until the final minute.

However, the Boro boss also accepts that his own club were at fault for the failure to get a deal over a line, and is desperate to avoid more last-minute negotiations next month.

The Teessiders are due to play five league matches and at least one FA Cup tie in January, and with his squad currently stretched to the limit, Warnock will be telling those above him that there is no point waiting until the end of the month to conduct their business.

“It all fell down (in the summer), but I don’t think that was just Yannick’s fault, it was the fault of everybody involved,” he said. “There were so many different things, but the fact is we left it too late. There’s going to be problems when the player is not anywhere near where he should be an hour before the deadline, especially when we hadn’t got everything agreed with Everton, which I thought we had. You’re going to get problems like that

“We can’t be leaving it to the last minute again. We need them early – I’d rather be signing players on January 1 than January 31. The lads need a bit of help – we all need a bit of a fresh impetus to help us out really. They’re all tired. I can’t fault the effort because they are all really trying, and that’s all I can ask, that the lads stick together and do their best. But we need that little bit of quality coming in.

“We’ll be having the conversation with Neil Bausor, Steve and the recruitment people to see what we can do.”