Middlesbrough signing Lukas Engel and Emmanuel Latte Lath

Engel’s signing from Danish club Silkeborg should be confirmed today with the full-back having successfully completed a medical at Boro’s Rockliffe Park training ground.

The Teessiders, who suffered their second Championship defeat in their opening two matches when they lost at Coventry City at the weekend, have agreed a package that could ultimately be worth around £2m for the defender.

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They have also made a breakthrough in their negotiations with Atalanta over Ivorian forward Latte Lath, with reports in the Italian media yesterday suggesting the 24-year-old has been given the green light to travel to England to complete a medical and finalise personal terms.

Italian reports suggest Boro are set to hand Latte Lath a four-year contract after agreeing a deal of around €5m with Atalanta officials.

Latte Lath spent last season on loan at Swiss side St Gallen, where he scored 16 goals in 34 senior appearances.

His arrival will be a major boost to Boro boss Michael Carrick, who did not name Akpom in his squad for Saturday’s defeat at the CBS Arena.

Carrick confirmed Boro had “received bids” for Akpom, who has entered the final year of his current deal, with French club Lens and Dutch side Ajax having lodged formal offers.

Chuba Akpom is leaving Middlesbrough (Image: Tom Banks)

Lens' offer was the first to be accepted by Boro officials, but Akpom's preference was always for a move to the Dutch Eredivise with Ajax.

A series of further discussions were held yesterday between senior Boro officials and the hierarchy at Ajax, with a breakthrough understood to have been reached.

Ajax are set to pay an initial fee of around €12m for Akpom, with potential add-ons taking the total value of the deal to around €14m.

Ajax are keen to get Akpom to Amsterdam to undergo a medical in the next 24 hours, and provided there are no unforeseen issues there, the transfer should be concluded relatively swiftly with personal terms not expected to cause any problems.

Sheffield United were also interested in Akpom, but the Blades did not table a formal offer for last season's Championship Player of the Year.

Akpom joined Boro from Greek side PAOK Salonika in September 2020 for a reported fee of around £2.75m.

He struggled to make much of an impact in the early days of his Boro career, and he returned to PAOK on loan for the 2021-22 season.

He might well have left Teesside in the summer of 2022 had Chris Wilder been able to recruit a replacement in the early stages of the transfer window, but having remained in the Boro squad, the 27-year-old was completely reborn under Carrick.

He scored 28 goals in 40 Championship appearances, making him the division's leading scorer and the first Boro player to score more than 20 league goals in a season since Bernie Slaven.

His future has been uncertain all summer, with Carrick stating at the weekend that there is a plan in place for his departure.

Carrick said: "Regardless of any individual, there’s a plan of ifs and buts in terms of what might happen.

"You can’t plan for every single eventuality, so that’s only true to a point, but as a club we have certain things that we’ve talked about and certain ideas about what we’d want to do if other things happened. We’ve certainly got eventualities that we’ve planned for."