THE season has limped to its conclusion, now, in the eyes of Neil Warnock, the real work can begin. Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to a Wycombe side that will spend next season in League One was largely irrelevant given that Middlesbrough’s hopes of making the play-offs had long since disappeared, but the fact that the Teessiders signed off without recording a single effort on target was a fitting denouement to the campaign.

Boro’s primary weakness all season has been their lack of a goalscoring threat, with Duncan Watmore finishing as top scorer even though he is not really a striker and did not make his Middlesbrough debut until the end of November.

Britt Assombalonga, Ashley Fletcher and Chuba Akpom, a strike-force with a value of £24m when you tot up the transfer fees that were shelled out to bring them to Boro, contributed a combined total of 12 league goals, a desperately poor return that was always going to make promotion an impossibility.

Could Warnock have got more out of the trio? Possibly. Although, in the Boro boss’ defence, signing Akpom was an act of desperation when all other avenues had been closed, and his predecessors at the Riverside hardly turned Assombalonga or Fletcher into goal machines either.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the last nine months, the fact that Assombalonga and Fletcher have already passed through the exit door, while Akpom has spent most of the second half of the season shuffled into the shadows, means Warnock has the opportunity to mould his own forward line for next season.

He accepts there are limited options available, but assuming Steve Gibson backs him in the market this summer, bemoaning a lack of firepower will not be an acceptable excuse if things do not go to plan next term.

“We were never really good enough up front,” admitted Warnock. “I tried different permutations, all over the show, but we never really had the quality that we needed to sustain a push.

“In a way, it’s (missing out on promotion) probably a blessing. But we’ve got to try to find the people now. That’s what we’re looking at, and we’ve just got to hope that Neil (Bausor) and Steve can get together and get the strikers that we’re looking at.

“We know where we’re looking, and we’ll have to get on with that now and try to bring the right ones in so that we give ourselves a chance next year.”

Warnock has the core of a squad that has proved it is good enough to at least be part of the discussion when it comes to challenging for promotion.

Goalkeeper remains an area of concern – having displaced Marcus Bettinelli, Jordan Archer has not really done enough to warrant being retained as number one – but for all that Saturday’s defeat contained a number of sloppy concessions, Warnock is right to claim that the current defence is reasonably strong. Paddy McNair and Dael Fry would walk into most teams in the Championship, while Anfernee Dijksteel, Marc Bola and Grant Hall add depth to the backline.

Jonny Howson, George Saville and Sam Morsy should shore up the heart of midfield, potentially with a returning Lewis Wing, but when it comes to creativity, Watmore and Marcus Tavernier are the only current players who can be confident of a place in next season’s squad. Clearly, that leaves Warnock with a lot of work to do.

“There are lads like Jonny, Paddy and Grant that have done superb," said the Boro boss. "But it’s my job to try to fill the gaps around them."