AS far as potential problems go, it’s not exactly a bad one to have. Within their ranks, Middlesbrough boast the Championship’s Player of the Year, who has just completed the best season of his career, topping the division’s goalscoring charts.

At 27, he should be at the peak of his powers, and he remains contracted to the Riverside. He is more than happy at Middlesbrough, and his head coach is more than happy to continue building a team around him. So far, so good.

Yet at some stage this summer, there is a good chance Chuba Akpom will begin to start posing a dilemma for Kieran Scott, Michael Carrick and the rest of Middlesbrough’s recruitment team. With just 12 months left on his current deal, and with clubs in the Premier League becoming increasingly interested in the forward, Boro might well find themselves having to consider Akpom’s long-term future before the transfer window closes at the end of August. At that stage, some difficult decisions will have to be made.

For now, Boro can head into the start of the window content with the status quo. For all that he might have scored 28 Championship goals last season – seven clear of his closest rival, Viktor Gyokeres – there is no suggestion at this stage that top-flight clubs are falling over themselves to table a bid for Akpom’s services.

As the summer progresses though, it is not hard to imagine that that might change. If a Sheffield United, Burnley, Everton or Crystal Palace fail to secure their leading attacking targets, it is not hard to imagine them turning to Akpom as a Plan B or C late in the window. If formal offers are tabled for Akpom, Boro will have a decision to make. And even if bids are not forthcoming, the Teessiders will not want to be heading into January with Akpom just six months away from being a free agent. At some point this summer, his contractual status will have to be resolved.

One solution should be relatively simple to engineer. Sit down with Akpom and his advisors, listen to his demands, and hand him a lucrative new long-term deal, making him Middlesbrough’s highest-paid player in the process. The benefits of such a move are obvious – Akpom gets a contract that gives him long-term stability and sets him up for life; Middlesbrough get the security of knowing that last season’s best player will be around for the next four or five years and can set about the rest of their summer transfer business safe in the knowledge that a key building block of their team is already in place.

The problem in such a scenario is that Akpom’s stock has never been higher, and for all that he might profess his undying love for Middlesbrough and the project Carrick is enacting, his advisors will be pushing for a deal that reflects the fact that he has just been acknowledged as the best player in the second tier. It’s a pretty safe assumption that contract talks would involve demands for a hefty wage increase – potentially more than doubling his current pay packet – as well as a long-term agreement. While there is the budget for some investment into the playing squad this summer, the days of Boro being able to dip into parachute payments to top up the budget are long gone. If Akpom’s wage rockets, there will have to be cutbacks or reduced spending elsewhere.

The Northern Echo: Middlesbrough forward Chuba AkpomMiddlesbrough forward Chuba Akpom (Image: Tom Banks)

The Boro hierarchy might well conclude that is a price worth paying to retain Akpom, but that assessment basically boils down to how you answer one simple question. Have last season’s performances set a new baseline level that Akpom will be guaranteed to match or better over the course of the next few years? Or will the last nine months prove to be an outlier in a career that was flatlining prior to Carrick’s arrival, and will Akpom revert to being the inconsistent fringe player that neither Neil Warnock nor Chris Wilder deemed worthy of a place in the Middlesbrough team?

The optimistic view is the former, with Carrick clearly having worked out how to get the best out of a player that always had considerable potential, hence his development through Arsenal’s academy and appearances for England Under-21s, but who has only really flourished after being switched to the ‘number ten’ role that suited him so well last season. Provided Carrick remains in charge, there should be a good chance that Akpom can pick up where he left off last month and be every bit as effective and impressive next season.

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Boro’s problem is that the evidence for that is drawn from a small chapter in an otherwise unremarkable body of work. The transfermarkt website tracks a player’s estimated value over the course of his career. It is an inexact science, but it provides a reasonably reliable overview of the fluctuations in a player’s stock and performance levels. From the moment he broke through at Arsenal in 2013 to the point at which he returned to Middlesbrough last summer, Akpom’s value remained static at between €1-3m over a period of nine years. By January, when he was clicking into gear under Carrick, it had risen to €7m. Right now, the website estimates Akpom’s value at €12m (around £10.3m).

Should Boro cash in when the striker’s stock is so high? If a Premier League club came with a £10m bid this summer, it would certainly focus minds. Middlesbrough’s most recent accounts revealed an annual turnover of £26.9m, so Akpom’s value is nearly a half of everything Boro bring in over the course of a year.

And even if there is no offer this summer, can Boro afford to run the risk of arguably their biggest playing asset becoming worthless in 12 months’ time? That is the question at the very top of Scott and Carrick’s summer in-tray. It might be a good problem, but it is a problem nonetheless.