Boro desperate for Wheater deal

Boro desperate for Wheater deal

Middlesbrough manager Tony Mowbray is hardly holding the best bargaining chip as he tries to convince David Wheater to commit his long term future to the club.

The centre back is coming to the end of his current deal at the Riverside and the football rumours suggest a number of Premier League sides have begun sniffing around the 23 year old.

"Premier League clubs courting your players is generally not a bad thing because it means you have got a good team," Mowbray told the Evening Gazette

That may be true but Mowbray will need to start picking up some wins quickly if he is to have any real case to put to Wheater regarding a new deal.

Mowbray has to convince Wheater that although the Premiership may look appealing, what he really wants is to stick around and help Boro start the long road back to the big time.

Wheater is one of those rare breed of footballers, in that he has loyalty as part of his set-up. The Redcar born defender is a Boro fan and will want to be part of taking his boyhood club back up to the Premier League. At some point though, his career ambitions have to come in to consideration and he may have to follow the example set by fellow local boy Stuart Downing and move on to further his career.

That ten point gap could quickly diminish if Mowbray can get his talented squad to gel. The table is still extremely tight and a run of good results could springboard Boro up the table. Aside from maybe Cardiff and QPR, not many other teams in the Championship can rival Boro for squad strength but so far that hasn't been enough. The football predictions suggested they'd be topping the table, but they haven't totally gelled as a team.

Mowbray's side are going to need to start showing their quality soon as they face a tough run of fixtures. First up is this weekend's visit of Hull, followed by a trip to Coventry the following week. After that comes a massive home clash against high flying Cardiff. If Boro have any hope of promotion this season then they need to really come out of those three games with maximum points.

More Boro news...

Welcome to oneBoro

Welcome to oneBoro, bringing you the latest Boro news, transfers, team news, fixtures and results from Middlesbrough FC.

The Boro blog delivers opinion, discussion, views and news from MFC.

Check out the oneBoro Forum to join in the debate with over 975,000 posts and growing!