The anticipated signing of Adam Forshaw once again proves Steve Gibson’s incredible commitment to Boro and Aitor Karanka.
The chairman is doing everything possible to ensure his club achieves promotion at the earliest possible opportunity.
After sacking Tony Mowbray in October 2013, Gibson was determined to recruit the best possible candidate as his replacement.
After taking soundings from former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon and Blues boss Jose Mourinho, he decided to appoint Karanka.
Since the Spaniard arrived on Teesside, Gibson has backed him to the hilt.
Suggestions that he has simply thrown money at his head coach are wide of the mark.
Several players had to be moved on before Karanka could bring in his targets.
But there’s no doubt the massive overhaul of the first team squad wouldn’t have been possible without the chairman’s support.
Out went the likes of Lukas Jutkiewicz, Marvin Emnes, Jacob Buttefield, Kei Kamara and Richard Smallwood and in came Dani Ayala, Lee Tomlin, Kike Garcia, Yanic Widschut, Emilio Nsue and Damia Abella plus a raft of quality loan signings including Jelle Vossen and Patrick Bamford.
Detractors will ask why such support wasn’t given to Mowbray. The fact is, the wage bill at Boro was at a similar level during Mogga’s time but a lot of the money went to players who were signed by Gordon Strachan and the club couldn’t move them on.
As a result, Mowbray’s options in the transfer market were limited during his first two full seasons in charge.
By the time Karanka took over, most of those players had finally moved on and the money could be redistributed onto new targets.
Karanka doesn’t often show signs of emotion in press conferences, but he did bite last week when it was suggested to him by a journalist that Boro had spent a lot of money in the summer transfer window.
He said: “We haven’t spent much money, all the players we brought here are from the money we brought in from selling Jutkiewicz and Emnes.
“Everybody says ‘Boro are spending’ but we haven’t spent that much.
“The money we have spent was on Clayton and Kike and that was the same amount we received from sales.”
Still, Gibson has maxed out his credit card and is unlikely to be making any further signings for the time being.
Attendances at the Riverside are slowly improving, but the chairman continues to pump in up to £1m a month to keep the club in the black.
Unlike many owners, that money is a loan repayable at a favourable rate of interest, Gibson knows he won’t get that cash back anytime soon, if at all.
He’s genuinely one of a kind and nobody in football deserves promotion more than Boro’s ultra-loyal chairman.
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