MIDDLESBROUGH are fiercely determined to keep their star players on Teesside this summer as they plot a Championship promotion push - with clubs interested in the likes of Rav van den Berg, Hayden Hackney and Emmanuel Latte Lath told it would take astronomical offers to tempt Boro into playing ball.

Head of football Kieran Scott says owner Steve Gibson is "really bullish and fiery" in his desire to keep Boro's stars at the Riverside in the coming months.

Teenager van den Berg has admirers in the Premier League and in Europe after his hugely impressive first season in the Championship, but Scott expects the Dutch defender to stay at Boro for at least one more year.

Latte Lath caught the attention of clubs with his blistering form at the end of his first season at Boro, scoring 11 goals in the final 12 games, but Scott said the striker quite simply "isn't for sale" this summer.

Hackney, meanwhile, has been of interest to Premier League clubs since his hugely impressive breakthrough at the Riverside but the England Under-21 international remains happy at his hometown club and is a major part of Michael Carrick's plans for next term.

Boro have no intention of listening to offers for any key men this summer unless their hand was forced with a bid that was quite simply impossible to turn down. But it would take mega money to bring Boro to the table.

"It's vital (to keep players), I don't mind saying that," stressed Scott.

"I can't control what other clubs may do or may not do but from our position we don't want to lose anyone.

"The only chance we're going to have of going up this season is keeping our best players. I speak to Steve regularly and he's as strong and fiery on this as I've ever heard him in terms of us keeping our players here.

"I can't stop if somebody offers money the club has to look at. Hopefully they don't because we don't want to lose anyone.

"We want to build around the guys we've got, add players at that level and higher and really challenge this year. The only way we're going to do that is keeping players here."

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Van den Berg is already on the radar of some of Europe's biggest clubs having had the option to join the likes of Dortmund or AC Milan last summer. His reputation has been further enhanced on the back of his outstanding first season at Boro - but he's in no rush to leave and won't be pushing for a move this summer.

Scott told the Northern Echo: "Rav is really happy. I think Rav stays another year minimum.

"If he has another season where he's fantastic and we go up, I think he stays again. If he has a great season and we don't then we might have a problem. But he's part of it. He's a smart boy, a bright kid."

As for Latte Lath, he endured a frustrating start to life at Boro but finished the campaign in dazzling form, scooping the Championship's April Player of the Month award and winning his very first call-up to the Ivory Coast squad.

Interest in the 25-year-old is inevitable, admits Scott, but Boro are desperate to keep the striker, who they believe will build on his exciting end to the season and kick-on again next term.

"We're going to end off fighting off a lot of clubs to keep him," said Scott.

"He isn't for sale. We don't want to let him go.

"Steve is really bullish about keeping our best players. We know we can't aim for promotion and then let our best centre-forward go.

"The form he was in, Azaz is starting to pick him out, Ayling is picking him out. We took a risk, £4.2m for a kid playing in Switzerland is quite a gamble. We took it, it paid off."