Boro put their fans through hell last season as the form after Christmas as consistently BAD! Now they aim for the opposite.

Steve Agnew: “It wasn’t easy last year because once you get involved in a rut it’s difficult to fight your way out of it.

“There are harsh lessons to be learned from last year and we’ve worked hard to bring in the right kind of changes.

“One thing we do need is consistency of performance.

“Obviously the experience that we do have is very important to us.

“Gary O’Neil has won promotion before from the Championship and so he can be a key player for us, while Leroy Lita has played a lot of games, and scored a lot of goals, at this level.”