IN his week in interim charge of Middlesbrough, Leo Percovich has taken the positives from taking the club out of the Championship relegation zone. However, club officials are set to step up their recruitment of a new manager this week.

With Percovich in charge for today’s game, Boro failed to follow up their midweek win over Birmingham City as defeat to Millwall leaves them sitting in 21st place in the table, one place above the relegation zone.

Michael Carrick is the current frontrunner for the job with club chiefs set to meet with the former Manchester United midfielder in the near future while Rob Edwards, recently sacked by Watford, is also in the frame to take over at the Riverside Stadium.

Boro are well underway in their process of appointing a successor to Wilder with talks having taken place with potential candidates. A decision could well be made by the time they return to Championship action next weekend.

Whoever the new man may be, there may well be some answers on their identity when a meeting is held at the start of the week. For the mean time, Percovich is fulfilling his brief as he said: “It’s day-by-day. Sunday is a day off and then on Monday we reunite and we will see what the club have got to say to us.”

After Boro were labelled as promotion candidates at the beginning of the season, their chances of mounting a push for promotion to the top flight wither week by week.

Meanwhile, Percovich has had to undergo an unfamiliar role since the sacking of Chris Wilder as interim boss. As he looked at the team and prepared the players with a different slant, his assessments have not changed. “I’ve not learned anything because I already knew the passion of the club since I first arrived” he continued.

“The passion and size of the club, you look around and see what we have and see who we are and you understand how big the club is.

“I feel the togetherness, I feel the disappointment of today, and in football you can go up and down so quick. But we started in the relegation position and we finish above that, so we have to take the positive of that to then handover to the next manager.”

Boro are next in action against Blackburn Rovers next Saturday with the club having a free week to potentially appoint a new man in the dugout.