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Boro academy prospect Ollie Samuels has joined Cliftonville on loan.

The length of the loan was not confirmed, but the versatile left-sided player will get the opportunity for first-team experience in the Northern Ireland Premiership.

He completed his move on Tuesday and went straight into Jim Magilton's starting XI for their friendly win over Warrenpoint Town last night.

Samuels, 20, has been in Boro's academy for over a decade and signed his first pro contract at the club in April 2025.

He's yet to make a senior competitive appearance, but did feature in Boro XI that played Hartlepool last summer, and was a regular for Mark Tinkler's U21 side last term.

(Unfortunately the only good pic we have of him is one going off injured!)

Middlesbrough's U21 player Oliver Samuels goes off injured during the Premier League 2 match between Middlesbrough and West Ham United at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, England, on April 11, 2025. (Photo by Trevor Wilkinson | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

As we now know, someone Boro are interested in, albeit depending on if they could get a deal done. That's described as 'not easy'.

As for Phillips, he's a 21-year-old centre-back and, perhaps crucially after Fry's exit, he's 6ft 4in, so would add considerable height to Boro's defence.

Despite his young age, he's already made over 100 Championship appearances. He emerged from Blackburn's academy under Tony Mowbray before his move to Tottenham.

He had a half-season loan at Plymouth Argyle before spending the last two seasons at Stoke City on loan.

Last term he made 44 appearances for the Potters and was nominated for the Championship's Young Player of the Year award.

Tottenham Hotspur player Ashley Phillips in action(Image: Getty Images)

The former Boro loan star looks set to be leaving Southampton this summer.

According to talkSport, West Brom are keen on signing the striker, and it sounds like a permanent transfer is being discussed.

Cameron Archer could be on the move this summer(Image: Southampton FC via Getty Images)

Quick response.

We're told Ashley Phillips is a player Boro have been looking at. Centre-back is a position they need to fill this summer after Dael Fry's exit.

Phillips is one of many players under consideration at the moment, with a deal for the Tottenham centre-back described as 'not an easy one' to get done.

Ashley Phillips is currently on loan at Stoke City(Image: Getty)

A new one from Alan Nixon. He claims Boro are attempting to sign Tottenham defender Ashley Phillips.

We'll check that one out.

"Southamton FC's Tonda Eckert has been charged with three breaches of the FA Rule E3.1 in relation to misconduct between December 2025 and May 2026.

"It is alleged that the head coach acted in an improper manner and/or brought the game into disrepute by directing and/or authorising the observation of training sessions of Oxford United, Ipswich Town and Middlesbrough ahead of fixtures between these clubs and Southampton in December 2025, April 2026 and May 2026 respectively.

"Tonda Eckert has until Tuesday, July 28 to provide his responses."

Alasdair Gold, my colleague at Football London who covers Spurs and first broke this story, has said of Lankshear on X:

"I'm expecting Will Lankshear to be a Premier League player within a couple of years. Got plenty to his game, terrific finisher, growing physicality and still learning and developing."

“Middlesbrough is such a massive club over the years; I deem it to be a Premier League club.

"The project here really excites me. I can’t wait to get started and be part of the journey, and get this club back where it belongs.

“I feel like now is the best time in my career. I’m ready to hit the ground running and help this club."

Boro paying £8m upfront with a further potential for £12m in add-ons. There's a sell-on fee and a matching rights on future bids clause attached to the deal, as discussed yesterday.

Lankshear signs a five-year contract at Middlesbrough.

The goalkeeper has surprisingly been thrown a lifeline by Boro boss Kim Hellberg, when he appeared to have little future at Boro.

Left out of the squad altogether in the second half of last season, Dieng looked certain to be leaving this summer.

However, upon his return for pre-season, Dieng has been heavily involved in pre-season training, and featured in the friendly against Farense and Celtic.

Asked after Celtic, Hellberg opened the door for Dieng to earn his place back in the Boro team, and explained why he was offering that.

“He came back fit and strong," Hellberg said. "He's trying to do everything he can in training.

“That's how it's always been: if you do everything you can in training you'll get an opportunity and it's up to the players how they take that opportunity.

“He's come back strong and fit. You can see he's trained a lot during this break, which is not what everyone does all the time in this business. He's at a different fitness level. We'll see what happens. He's doing good.”

Seny Dieng of Middlesbrough celebrates after teammate Anfernee Dijksteel (not pictured) scored their first goal(Image: Getty Images)

Last night, Chelsea confirmed the signing of Morgan Rogers, providing a financial windfall for Boro.

A reminder, because of how the deals work, Boro are expected to be receiving around £4m this summer from that £117m transfer.

That's because Chelsea are paying the free in four annual installments, while Man City are also due 20% of everything Boro receive.

So when all is calculated, Boro will over the course of four years, receive around £16m from the Rogers transfer.

Morgan Rogers has completed a £117m transfer to Chelsea(Image: Getty)

We're back for another day of live transfer news.

Today could possibly be the day Boro announce their third summer signing too.

Will Lankshear was on Teesside yesterday putting the finishing touches to the deal that will see him join Boro.

No guarantees at this stage, but today could be the day that Lankshear is announced. We will, of course, keep you informed with any developments on that front, and also on any other Boro-related news.

A huge blow for the promising young defender. He's had to undergo surgery and is understood to be out for 3-4 months as a result. It makes the reason for his Celtic absence all the clearer.

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We're told that it's £8m initially, with a potantial for £12m in performance-related add-ons.

Spurs have included a sell-on fee, as is fairly standard, and, having initially tried to insert a buy-back clause, the two clubs have instead agreed on a matching rights on future bids clause.

Effectively that means if down the line Boro accept someone's bid for Lankshear, Tottenham will have the option to match that fee, and Boro must also accept that bid.

Encouraging for Boro. Hellberg said on Saturday he was expecting it to be around a week and a half to two weeks before Alfie Jones and Kyle Jospeh returned to training. This doesn't necessarily mean they're full training yet, but good to see them involved with the group

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The Will Lankshear transfer getting the Frabrizio Romano treatment!

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Sky Sports now reporting that a deal has been finalised between Boro and Totttenham for Lankshear.

The striker is set to undergo a medical at Boro today, they report.

Sounds like Boro are getting closer to finalising this major deal.

Remember that name? Sinayoko was one of a number of strikers that Boro enquired about during the January transfer window.

At the time, he was nearing the end of his contract with the French top tier club.

However, a move to Boro never materialised because the Mali international signed a new contract at Auxerre and rather nobly stated that Auxerre had done so much for his career, and he therefore did not want to leave them in a position where they would not finanially benefit from his exit.

Now, they are, as Sinayoko has completed a move to fellow Ligue 1 side Paris FC. It's reported to be for a fee of €8m, but is said to have only come after the striker went on strike last week to force through the move!

Lassine Sinayoko celebrates scoring for Mali(Image: Bristol Post)

• QPR have completed the signing of former Chelsea and Brighton defender Tariq Lamptey. He joins on a free from Fiorentina
• West Ham are said to be mulling over Roma's latest bid for Summerville - said to be worth around £39m. Aston Villa are said to be monitoring the situation
• Sheff Utd have signed former Tottenham and Wolves defender Matt Doherty on a free transfer
• Lorent Tolaj has completed a £4m move to Bristol City from Plymouth Argyle
• Hull City are said to be keen on a deal for Norwich full-back Kellen Fisher.

It's a Boro recruitment policy to scout and know players from all of the top PL clubs' academies - and we've seen Boro sign many in recent years.

Ultimately, the top clubs stack their academies with the best young players knowing that, even if they don't make it at their club, they're likely to profit from their sales down the line.

So Boro are always aware of the top talents floating around elite academies, monitoring for if/when any opportunities arise.

Lankshear, is a player whose name first cropped up with Boro around two years ago. He's had admirers at the club for many years.

That summer, they didn't make a move as they signed Tommy Conway, but have been tracking Lankshear throughout the time since. Last summer they pursued long-term target David Strelec, but were again following closely as he went on loan to Oxford.

As January rolled around, they needed a striker and made a push to land Lankshear then. They felt they were pretty close too, but ultimately it was decided the young CF would stay and honour his loan at the Kassam Stadium.

Now, Boro finally appear to be getting their man. Recognising this was the summer Spurs were going to sell, Boro have stayed patient, had belief in their process and pulling power, and appear to have won an extremely competitive race to sign the striker.

No secret he's Boro's main left-back target this summer. After a post-World Cup break, he returned to training with Columbus Crew on Wednesday.

As things stand, it's understood there's no deal between the two clubs, while Arfsten has multiple clubs interested. But asked about a potential transfer this summer, amid Boro rumours, he said:

“I hate to give the politically correct answer, but right now, I’m playing for Columbus Crew. I’m training today and I’m focused on that.

“I don’t really know what’s going to happen in the future. But right now, I’m enjoying my time back, I’m excited to see all my team-mates, and I’m excited to train today.”

Then asked if he feels ready to make a jump to play in Europe, he admitted: “It’s definitely a dream of mine, just as I think it would be for most people.

“I do feel that, playing-wise, yeah, I’m ready for that step. But, at the same time, we’ll see what happens.”

Max Arfsten of the United States moves with the ball(Image: 2025John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF)

A number of clubs are understood to have been interested in Lankshear this summer.

Just last week, my colleague Alasdair Gold at Football London, who broke the Boro story last night, reported that Spurs had turned down three offers for the striker from Wolves, Southampton and Sporting CP.

Remember, both Wolves and Southampton have the significant advantage of parachute payments. It's said that Spurs turned down two offers which as a total package were worth eight-figures to Spurs, ie £10m-plus. The third offer was a loan with an obligation to buy (most likely one from either Wolves or Southampton, with the obligation based on promotion).

But Spurs turned down all three of those offers and, it appears now, are ready to finalise a deal with Boro.

We're not sure yet what Boro will be paying, or how the package of the deal will look, but it feels a major statement of intent.

A nice end to yesterday, with the news breaking about Will Lankshear.

In truth, the hope will be that today is quite quiet with regard to updates on Lankshear, as Boro look to finalise the deal with Spurs and get this one completed.

Lankshear had plenty of interest this summer, on the back of his impressive loan at Oxford, and it feels like a bit of a coup to get this one done, as it appears Boro have.

We'll have plenty more background on the move over the course of the day.

Boro sources indicate that the Lankshear report is correct and they are in advnaced talks to sign the in-demand Tottenham striker.

He netted 12 goals while on loan at Oxford last season.

PRESTON, ENGLAND - MARCH 06: Will Lankshear of Oxford United celebrates scoring his team's second goal during the Sky Bet Championship match between Preston North End and Oxford United at Deepdale Stadium on March 06, 2026 in Preston, England. (Photo by Lewis Storey/Getty Images)