WHEN Middlesbrough manager Chris Wilder was brought to the club, it ushered in an era that would see an entire change in culture and work ethic. At this point in time approaching nine months since his appointment, Wilder admits that his sweeping overhaul at the club is moving ‘at a pace’ with plenty of work still to be done behind the scenes.

Under Wilder, Boro are looking to build a team capable of mounting a serious promotion push in the Championship whilst carrying out changes behind the scenes in how the club conducts it’s business.

One of the key appointments billed with the responsibility in carrying out those changes is head of football Keiran Scott, who was one of the leading figures in bringing Wilder to the club last November.

Whilst the key areas of improvement will be what Wilder does with the playing squad and what additions are being made in the transfer window, the management structure is also carrying out work behind the scenes at the club’s Rockliffe training ground to ensure a streamlined way of working to get the best results for the football club.

Wilder is happy with where the land lies at this moment in time. “Things are moving at a pace” he told The Northern Echo during last week’s press conference.

“I’ve been delighted with the other aspects in how the club has backed me and back Kieran (Scott) as well because he is a huge part of it as well. We’ve brought in a director of football for a reason, to have a thread right the way through the football club which there hasn’t been yet. That’s something that pretty obvious.

“I suppose the supporters don’t want to change and all of a sudden see six players go and six players coming in. They want tweaks through the next two or three windows. Of course, there is always the excitement of the transfer window. You players that you can’t think about and you have to replace players but the level of change is huge here.

“We took a big jump and we are trying to change the mentality, the culture, the playing style, the connection with the academy, bringing new staff in and integrating them as well but these are the early parts and the foundations that hopefully we can build from.

“It isn’t going to happen overnight. I know there is going to be an expectation on us which I don’t want to dampen because I’d rather have that. I’m not going to fob anybody off by saving mid-table would be a decent season for us. We want better than that, of course we do.”

Whilst there were vast improvements in last year’s performances during Wilder’s reign, Boro fell short in their pursuit of the play-offs losing to Preston North End on the final day of the season.

During the summer months, Wilder, Scott and the club’s recruitment team have had to operate in a difficult transfer window with the club further behind in their business than the manager would have liked going into the second game of the season, which comes this weekend away to Queens Park Rangers.

Boro have lodged bids for Norwegian striker Jorgen Strand Larsen but as things stand, Dutch club FC Groningen are standing firm on keeping their frontman as they plan to offer him a new contract. While their pursuit of Larsen stands at an impasse, the club continue to make enquiries for forwards with Fulham’s Rodrigo Muniz on their radar as they await the green light from the Cottagers over a move.

Regarding changes elsewhere within the club, nothing has been achieved yet and there is still plenty of change to carry out in the manager’s mind: “There is still a hell of a lot of work to go into” Wilder continued.

“If I can only take of my experience at the other clubs that I’ve worked at, we worked extremely hard early on and worked extremely hard right the way through.

“Even just moving bits around in terms of Rockliffe just in terms of how we and the football club want it to look. So we are getting there but there is still a lot to be done.”

Boro have been running the rule over Dael Fry in training this week after he was not risked for their opening day draw against West Brom due to injury.

Meanwhile, Wilder will welcome the return of Paddy McNair to the Prince Kayan Foundation Stadium after he missed the first game of the season through suspension.