WITH Middlesbrough defender Djed Spence remaining hopeful of completing a permanent switch to Nottingham Forest, The Reds have made admitted they will attempt to re-sign all over their loan players ahead of their upcoming Premier League campaign.

Spence’s future looks almost certain to be away from Teesside next season with a host of clubs monitoring his situation with interest. Tottenham Hotspur are reportedly ready to lodge a bid while Brentford, Arsenal and other top clubs in Europe are keeping an eye on him.

After 46 appearances in all competitions with Forest this season playing a major role in achieving promotion to the Premier League, Forest will waste no time in opening up negotiations with Boro after spending the last week celebrating their play-off final win over Huddersfield.

Boro will look to command a sizeable fee for Spence in the summer with reported figures of a minimum of £15 million. Forest have had two contingency transfer plans for this summer and are now equipped to carry one of them out following promotion to the top flight. 

Forest CEO Dane Murphy told American radio station Sirius XM: "We have a very strong owner who is not afraid to invest in the club and make sure it becomes the Premier League club it should be, in all facets of the business. At the same time, there have been a few clubs who have gone up and spent an inordinate amount of money and then gone back down, and it hasn’t worked.

“In recent years, you can look at Brighton and Brentford, even Sheffield United in the first year they went up, they didn’t spend a lot of money, they kept a core group of players that brought them up and tried to build off it. Sometimes in the second year it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“I think it’s finding the balance between investing and making your team that much better to compete week in, week out, but still having your core group of guys. We have five loans, they all contributed – some pushed us beyond the mark. If we could get some of them back for next season and make them our players, we’re going to try to do that.

“I go back to the execution – find the balance of ‘okay, let’s invest but also, let’s keep the core chemistry and camaraderie’. It became a band of brothers at the end of the year, because it’s a young team with a few veteran leaders. To break that up now, to me, doesn’t make a whole tonne of sense.

“You have to secure your base – whether that’s the players, the staff, the backroom staff – you have to build on the blocks you already have and the base that’s already in place. We plan to do that.

“Now, it’s just up to us in the negotiations, speaking to other teams, speaking to staff and their agents, making sure, yes, we get our guys who are on the ground now and helped us to get where we are, to then build by adding a few players or a few key members of staff. Whatever it takes to make the club a Premier League entity. But as always, building from the core you have is the first priority.”

The 21-year-old full-back has two years to run on his existing deal on Teesside but Boro look set to cash in on a prized asset.

The money generated from Spence's transfer will look to be put towards Chris Wilder's budget for next season with the Boro boss tasked with building a side capable of gaining promotion to the Premier League.