Boro chief Southgate keen to move quickly with Harper, Davis, Digard and Kightly topping his wish list

The Boro boss has already lost five senior players with Mark Schwarzer, Fabio Rochemback, Gaizka Mendieta, Dong Gook Lee and Jason Kennedy quitting the club since the end of the season.

But Southgate, who is also unlikely to stand in the way of former skipper George Boateng if he decides to depart, has been busy making inquiries ahead of the official re-opening of the transfer market, with Reading's James Harper, Portsmouth midfielder Sean Davis, Paris St Germain's Didier Digard and Wolves playmaker Michael Kightly at the top of his wish list.

Target: Reading's James Harper (centre) is interesting Gareth Southgate

Southgate has insisted that he will not be seeking a new number one and young keepers Ross Turnbull and Brad Jones have earned the right to replace Australia international Schwarzer, who has joined Fulham on a free transfer after 11 years at the Riverside.

But the Middlesbrough boss is confident he will be fully prepared for the new campaign, without the disruption which affected his planning a year ago.

Southgate said: "The basis of the squad we have is young, there is a platform to build on and everyone is keen to do that.

"There were a lot of changes last season and the timing of some of them was not helpful, such as Yakubu leaving. Once the season has started it becomes very difficult to change certain things.

"It's difficult finding people to come in at that stage and difficult to adjust them to their surroundings if you do get someone. You may as well throw your pre-season out of the window.

"I think we were a couple light in terms of numbers last season. We were incredibly unlucky to get injuries to all of our central defenders at once and to all our strikers at once, that's unbelievably rare but we have to be prepared for lots of things when the season starts."