GEORGE FRIEND says Middlesbrough’s players are fully supportive of Tony Pulis’ attempts to bring in new players next month, and claims the January transfer window will play a crucial role in determining the success of the Teessiders’ season.

Boro climbed back up to fourth position in the Championship table on Saturday as Friend’s second-half strike secured a 1-0 win at Reading and ended a five-game winless run.

Pulis was delighted to see his side get back to winning ways at the Madejski Stadium, but the Boro boss remains determined to make a number of attacking additions next month, having repeatedly cited a lack of pace and power in the final third as a major weakness of his squad.

Crystal Palace duo Connor Wickham and Jason Puncheon are leading targets – the latter was the subject of an unsuccessful approach in the summer – while Boro’s recruitment team are also understood to have been focusing on a handful of potential options based overseas.

There are also likely to be departures, with Swansea City having made an approach for Martin Braithwaite, Ipswich Town interested in Rudy Gestede and huge question marks continuing to hang over the head of Boro’s £15m record signing, Britt Assombalonga.

It is likely to be a busy start to the New Year on Teesside, with Friend accepting the need for squad reinforcements if his side are to re-establish themselves as viable challengers for automatic promotion.

“Do the players want to see new signings? Yeah, of course,” said Friend, who scored his second goal of the season at the weekend. “You look at our promotion season in the past, and when you add to the squad, you’re hoping to add quality and not just bring players in.

“If that quality does come in, then we’ve all got the same goal. It doesn’t matter who’s playing, it doesn’t matter who scores, it’s about getting the wins and the ultimate aim is promotion.

“As an individual, the club doing well can only help you, and as a team it can only help everyone. When the club is doing well, everyone is doing well, so to add quality would be brilliant.”

Friend was part of the Middlesbrough squad that won promotion under Aitor Karanka in 2016, and January proved a pivotal month in that campaign, with Jordan Rhodes and Gaston Ramirez both arriving to transform the club’s attacking outlook.

Rhodes, a £9m signing from Blackburn Rovers, scored six goals in the second half of the 2015-16 season, and while he was never able to establish himself as a certain starter under Karanka, his brace in a 2-1 win at Bolton Wanderers marked an especially important moment in Boro’s successful promotion push.

Ramirez signed on loan from Southampton – a move that would become permanent the following summer – and while his time on Teesside eventually ended on a sour note, the Uruguayan was a key performer in the promotion season, scoring seven goals as he provided some much-needed creativity from the ‘number ten’ role. How Pulis could do with recruiting a similarly influential play-maker next month.

“That year when Gaston came in, it was fantastic,” said Friend. “Another one was Jordan, when he came in and scored some crucial goals. There will be others who I haven’t mentioned that have come in like that too, I’m sure.

“It’s about adding, and it’s also about competition. There might be someone who’s not quite firing, but someone comes in in their position and you see another few per cent. It’s important it happens and we keep pushing on.”

Nevertheless, as he reflects on a year that started with Pulis’ arrival as manager, featured an unsuccessful appearance in the play-off semi-finals as well as a run to the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, and is set to end with back-to-back home games against Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town, Friend is adamant that progress has been made.

This time last year, Steve Gibson was just about to embark on the process of appointing Pulis to replace Garry Monk, and while Boro’s position in and around the play-off places has not changed too much, Friend claims the mood within the camp is much better now than it was 12 months ago.

“I think we’re in better shape, definitely,” he said. “This time last year, the team was rotating every week, people were in and out of squads.

“There’s a lot more consistency now, and even though in the last five games we hadn’t had the results we wanted, there’s still been that consistency in selection and the manager has kept confidence. That has been important.

“You look at the start of the season and how well we were doing – this game (against Reading) reminded me of that. The lads have kept at it, and when you work hard and keep the faith, the results and rewards do come.”

That wasn’t the case last Tuesday, but while Friend was understandably disappointed at missing out on a possible appearance in the semi-finals of the League Cup, he insists it is important to draw a line under the 1-0 defeat to Burton and move on.

Saturday’s victory, achieved via Friend’s 77th-minute strike, helped improve the general mood, and Friend is hoping to generate even more of a feel-good factor when Boro return to home surrounds to play in front of a bumper crowd on Boxing Day.

“It obviously didn’t help things going out of the cup, but we were the only Championship side to get to that stage, and nobody really mentioned that,” he said. “It’s only because we lost to Burton that the negatives come out.

“On a different night, some of our chances would have gone in and we win that game. But I don’t want to talk about the past too much. We’ve got two home games coming up, and this is where you push on. You get those results, and hopefully you stay in amongst it because this is where it counts.”

A run of five games without a victory had led to some mounting discontent, with Boro’s players having been booed from the field in the wake of their League Cup loss.

Friend fully understands the sense of disappointment, but claims it is important to retain a sense of perspective given Boro’s position in the play-off places, and the fact they boast the best defensive record in the Championship.

“It’s disappointing when negatives are flying about, but there's that expectation and that's what keeps us going,” he said. “You want that because you put pressure on yourself, and you also want Middlesbrough to be in amongst it.”