MIDDLESBROUGH boss Steve McClaren will spend the next couple of weeks sorting out his first team plans for next season.

And McClaren's first action will be to clinch a deal to bring left-back Franck Queudrue in permanently.

Queudrue, 23, has fitted in well to McClaren's solid back-four and the French B international is expected to sign in a £2m deal when his loan period from RC Lens expires at the end of the season.

Queudrue's fellow-countryman, Michael Debeve, and Italian Benito Carbone are also only at the Riverside for the remainder of the current campaign.

And McClaren, who has contract talks with Paul Ince planned, admitted he has a busy period ahead.

"We have to calmly sit down and plan for next season's campaign and I think that's a great position to be in," said McClaren.

"If someone had offered me that at Christmas time I'd have snapped your hands off.

''Consolidation in our first half was always our aim. We've established a lot of things behind the scenes.

"Like reducing the wage bill, getting the structure together and we've done that.

"We can still finish in the top half of the table and I would have been happy with that at the beginning of the season and even happier after we lost our first four games.''

McClaren revealed his frustration at his side's failure to end their fixtures at the Riverside with a victory over Chelsea.

And at the end of the 2-0 defeat the Boro players trooped around the pitch and were clapped by a sparse home crowd, after the vast majority had left dejected.

And McClaren said: "We're disappointed with the result because we wanted to finish on a high, but it wasn't to be.

"There was few turning points in the game. We should have had the first goal, but it was disallowed."

The Boro chief insists that referee Barry Knight was wrong to rule out Colin Cooper's goal, and he struggled to find a reason why the official blew.

"It was a strange decision," said McClaren.

"I haven't got a clue why he gave that decision. All I know is that he gave a few strange decisions all the way through the game."

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