Boro’ capped the January 2021 transfer window with the arrival of Jack Roles; the highly-rated youngster coming in from Spurs. An attacking midfielder by trade, the lad could do a turn on the wing or through the middle. For boss Alex Revell, the decision to loan Roles in made sense. Here was a lad with the skill and experience to unlock defences; creating the chances we needed to score goals. And that’d be such a treat in a 2020-1 campaign when goals were at a premium.

It was a deal that raised a few eyebrows too. Well, that’s if you’d count the various tweets proclaiming the loan signing. For those more in the know about Roles and his abilities, his arrival was a real statement of intent. But you don’t need an intimate knowledge of young Premier League players to know that a lad coming in from a top six Premier League team must have something about him. And that was a sentiment very much echoed in what the gaffer had to say when he joined.

“We are delighted to bring Jack to the football club,” said Revs. “He is a hugely talented player and will add a great deal of guile and craft into the team. He proved last season that he has what it takes to be a success in the division, so we are really looking forward to introducing him to our group.”

Jack Roles: Before Boro’

While Spurs is the club who loaned Roles to us, the lad did come to us with some useful Football League experience too. In the 2019-20 League Two season, he spent some time at Cambridge United; scoring five times in 25 outings for the Us. He also went out on loan to Burton Albion during the first half of the 2020-1 campaign. But, for some reason, game time didn’t materialise as much as Spurs would’ve hoped.