You can almost picture the scene when Aitor Karanka met Steve Gibson a couple of months ago to discuss Boro’s January transfer plans.
I imagine they were both sat in a warm office at the Riverside. There is a friendly atmosphere between two men who share an immense amount of respect for each other.
And most importantly, both share the same determination to see Boro back in the Premier League next season.
Karanka’s January wishlist is carefully scribed onto an A4 piece of paper, placed on the desk just in front of him. It is short but clear. It’s the final dossier showing how Boro can finally return to football’s top table.
Gibson listens intently. The Spaniard explains that a host of fresh faces are not required. It’s just a little bit of tinkering now, merely putting the icing on the cake.
Boro’s promotion-chasing squad is almost complete. Now let’s clinch promotion in style.
I suspect there were three things on Karanka’s treasured piece of paper.
Number one - negotiate a deal with Chelsea to keep Patrick Bamford on Teesside until the end of the season.
Number two - bring in a versatile defender who can offer cover in Boro’s problematic right-back berth. After losing Damia Abella (cruciate) and Rhys Williams (Achilles) for the rest of the season, back-up is required.
Then number three, sign a young, energetic midfielder who can add competition in Boro’s engine room. Grant Leadbitter, Adam Clayton and Dean Whitehead have all been outstanding during the first half of the campaign, but an injury would leave the team short. We need one more face.
Chris Vaughan/CameraSport 
Middlesbrough goal-scorers Patrick Bamford, left, and Kike celebrate the win over Manchester City in the FA Cup
Gibson reaches the bottom of the A4 piece of paper and turns it over, almost expecting there to be more writing on the back. But it is blank.
Fast forward to today and Gibson has delivered on every single one of Karanka’s requests.
Bamford, deal extended. Tomas Kalas, signed. Adam Forshaw, signed. Does the Boro chairman’s commitment to the cause show no limit?
It’s been a superb month for Boro, both on and off the field. January is so often the cause of sleepless nights for some clubs with prized assets itching for moves and transfer rumours swirling around the training ground.
But that’s not the case at Rockliffe. Forshaw’s arrival this week was the final bit of the promotion jigsaw. You can hang a “closed” sign on the door of the Riverside and unplug the phones. There will be no more business here.
It must be so refreshing for Karanka to have a chairman like Gibson, especially in what is his first managerial job in a different country. In yesterday’s press conference the Spaniard confidently told the media that no first-team stars would be leaving Boro this month.
Of course, the rumours are circulating. George Friend has been linked with almost all of the Premier League’s bottom eight clubs - again.
But will it happen? Absolutely not. Business at the Riverside is done. Nobody is coming in, and nobody is going out.
Having broke the 50-point barrier, Boro are more than half-way to achieving their promotion dream. Why would Gibson and Karanka threaten that, after so much hard work has been put in so far?
On the pitch, January couldn’t have been much better for Boro. A draw at Reading may have been a victory, granted, but it was a clean sheet and a valuable point against a team buoyed by the arrival of a new manager.
FA Cup victories at Barnsley and most notably Manchester City, as well as back-to-back home league triumphs over Huddersfield and Cardiff. Not bad at all.
© CameraSport 
Middlesbrough's Jelle Vossen celebrates scoring the opening goal
Ahead of tomorrow’s match at Brentford, Boro sit one point off the league’s summit. That may change if Bournemouth beat Watford in tonight’s Championship offering, but as things stand Boro are a single point off their rivals, having played the same number of games.
At the end of December, following the 0-0 draw at Blackburn, Karanka’s side were five points off the pace. Second-placed Ipswich also had a game in hand, which potentially could have put them four points clear of Boro.
So looking at the table now, it’s been an excellent month for Boro. Victory at Brentford tomorrow could send Karanka’s men top.
Boro have clawed themselves back into the automatic promotion race.
I remember saying four weeks ago that January could be the defining month in Boro’s promotion push. That isn’t to be misunderstood - the team’s gruelling run of fixtures in March are clearly going to go a long way to deciding their fate.
Nothing is won in January, but plenty can be lost.
At the beginning of the month rumours were spreading that Derby were keen to sign Bamford on a permanent deal, Jelle Vossen was unsettled, and Karanka himself was in-demand at a certain Premier League club up the road.
Fast forward four weeks and Bamford scores Boro’s opener at the Etihad Stadium in front of 5,500 travelling fans. Vossen - bemused by the inaccurate reports - gives Vincent Kompany a torrid time.
And Boro’s head coach categorically rules out any move away from the Riverside.
It would have been “typical Boro” for any of those things to have happened - but not this season. Not when the end objective is so close.
It’s inevitable that on the Twittersphere will go into meltdown on Monday with rumours of incomings and outgoings.
Then after the transfer window shuts, fans of other clubs will be in uproar after they ‘haven’t signed a striker’, or have ‘sold their best player’ on deadline day.
But Boro fans should be thankful. It’s all quiet on the Rockliffe front, and that silence is bliss.
A victory at Brentford tomorrow would cap off a wonderful month for Boro. And much of the credit goes to Gibson and Karanka.
Boro are sailing towards the Promised Land, evading icebergs and perilous obstacles in their path.
It would be very fitting if Karanka and Gibson were sat in that very same Riverside office on Monday night at 11pm, deservedly enjoying a glass of wine.
It’s been the perfect month for Boro.
Here’s to a magical February.
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