TONY Mowbray will spend the early days of his Middlesbrough reign attempting to recall as many of the club’s loan players as possible.

Mowbray completed his first full day as Boro boss yesterday, and with Saturday’s relegation battle against Championship basement boys Bristol City looming large, the majority of his attention was understandably focused on the preparation of his starting line-up for his Riverside debut, However, once Saturday’s game is out of the way, he will turn his thoughts to the makeup of the squad he has inherited from Gordon Strachan.

Chief executive Keith Lamb has pledged to do all he can to assist Mowbray’s rebuilding project, and while finances are tight following a succession of disappointing home attendances, a handful of emergency loan signings are possible before the transfer window formally reopens at the start of January.

First, though, Mowbray is keen to run the rule over all the players potentially at his disposal, and that means attempting to engineer the return of the quartet who have left Teesside on loan since the start of the season.

Andrew Taylor (Watford), Jonathan Grounds (Hibernian), Marvin Emnes (Swansea) and Didier Digard (Nice) have all signed loan agreements elsewhere, and in an ideal world, Mowbray and his assistant, Mark Venus, would like to have them available as quickly as possible.

Digard, in particular, seems unlikely to return, having agitated for a return to France all summer and signed a season- long contract with Nice.

But Taylor, Grounds and Emnes could all prove useful performers in forthcoming weeks, and Mowbray will be doing all he can to assure them they still have a future at the Riverside.

“In an ideal world, the loan players would come back so I can assess and see where they go as players,” said the new Boro boss. “I want to give everyone a chance.

“There will be 11 players on the field on Saturday, so those players will know that they are not cast aside. But everyone needs to know they will have an opportunity.

“It is a process we have to go through in the next month or two. All the players have to know that the manager does care.”

As well as providing assurance to the players he has inherited, one of Mowbray’s major tasks in the next couple of days will be attempting to kick-start an improvement in Boro’s scoring record.

The Teessiders have scored just one goal in their last three matches, and a tally of 12 goals from the opening 13 league games helps explain why they will kick off Saturday’s encounter in the bottom three.

Mowbray worked with Scott McDonald at Celtic, and also has extensive first-hand experience of Kris Boyd’s qualities from the striker’s time with Rangers, and is convinced the pair are capable of succeeding at Championship level.

However, having received detailed reports of Boro’s recent games, he accepts that the service to the front players has to improve if they are to start finding the net on a more regular basis.

“From afar, it seems that this squad has a problem scoring goals,” said Mowbray. “It is a mystery – well, it isn’t, football teams are about a balance, a chemistry, and strikers given space and time.

“We just have to get the balance of the team right, scoring goals. We will be working on that this week and trying to get the ball into goalscoring areas.

“We have two of the most prolific strikers in Scottish football in Scott and Kris – we just need to get them and the team scoring again.”

In January, that could mean the recruitment of a new forward – either on loan or permanently – and the Riverside hierarchy intend to support their new manager as much as possible, within the financial constraints that are inevitable given the continuing fall out from 2009’s relegation from the top-flight.

“We will continue to give the manager every assistance we can,” said Lamb. “We will do our best to support Tony in everything he wants to do. We have always backed the managers here and we will try to do our best again.”