AIYEGBENI YAKUBU completed a medical at Rockliffe Park yesterday with the Portsmouth striker agreeing to become a Middlesbrough player on July 1.

Boro are today awaiting the results of routine scans carried out in Darlington yesterday but, with no complications expected, the 22-year-old will become the club's first new signing of the summer.

Portsmouth have been resigned to their top-scorer leaving for some time and Boro have stolen a march on their Premiership rivals, including Newcastle, for his signature.

A statement confirmed: "Middlesbrough Football Club have announced they have agreed a fee with Portsmouth for the transfer of striker Aiyegbeni Yakubu."

No further details about the transfer are being disclosed at this stage but it is believed the fee is around £6.5m.

As Northern Echo SPORT revealed yesterday, Yakubu travelled to the North-East with his agent Barry Silkman to finalise terms.

Boro are eager to make sure the spending does not stop there and are trying to line up a number of other big name players before the start of the new campaign.

Manager Steve McClaren is keen to ensure the progress made over the last season continues, and was determined to strengthen in attack with last summer's big signing Mark Viduka playing just a handful of games.

McClaren said: "Preparations for next season start now.

"We've broke quite a few records - seventh, 55 points and I think we broke our goalscoring record - and we can't stand still.

"We've broken records over the four years we've been here. We've progressed each year and that's what pleases me.

"We've got better and I've said to the chairman that we can't stand still - we've got to kick on.

"To progress from last season we needed to score goals. We finished third or fourth highest scorers and that's incredible because we were third or fourth bottom the previous season.

"Jimmy coming in has added something and that's why you pay him so much money."

"We need to learn from the spell of the season where we played ten games and won one.

"That's the period we need to learn from and take in to next season. We need to have a squad big enough to cope when we do have the injuries - although there were a horrendous amount."

Boro chief executive Keith Lamb was also delighted to see McClaren make his first signing of the summer.

Lamb said: ''We do not anticipate any problems. We expect him to be a Middlesbrough player in the very near future. He fulfils Steve McClaren's requirements. He is young, he is a goalscorer, he is the next generation.

"We have got (Jimmy Floyd) Hasselbaink and (Mark) Viduka, and I am sure with Yakubu joining our strike-force, it will give us even more firepower.

''It is very important to us.''

Boro will have eight first-team strikers on their books when record-signing Massimo Maccarone returns from a loan spell in Italy.

Along with the £8.15m Italian and Hasselbaink, McClaren also has Viduka, Malcolm Christie and Joseph-Desire Job returning from injury, and Szilard Nemeth and youngster Danny Graham on the books.

However, when asked is a successful conclusion to the Yakubu deal would result in any departures, Lamb replied: ''Who knows?

"But at the moment, we are interested in adding to the squad and improving the squad, and Yakubu is a very valuable addition to the squad.

''Steve McClaren has selected him as somebody who will fit in with our existing players and be a very valuable addition to our squad for next year's games in the Premiership and in Europe.''

Yakubu managed 17 goals, 13 of them in the league, for Portsmouth to add to the 19 he collected during the previous campaign.

He arrived on the south coast from Israeli side Maccabi Haifa - who still part-own him and will be entitled to a proportion of the fee - in January 2003 and has attracted plenty of interest since.

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