Boro started their recruitment programme early yesterday when they announced the 27-year-old England defender had signed a permanent four-year contract.

In addition, talks are ongoing with 31-year-old striker Mark Viduka over a new deal for when his current one expires at the end of the season.

However, Lamb revealed Southgate would still be able to add to his squad even if the Australian stays, although to what extent remains to be seen.

He said: "The manager of Middlesbrough Football Club always has the support of the chairman, and that remains the case with Gareth.

"He has Steve Gibson's 100% support. He shares our ambitions and he wants to bring in players who are professional and have the attitude and application.

"We need to be signing players who have their best years ahead of them and believe they can achieve their own ambitions here.

"One thing that has been highlighted this season is the inconsistency of performance, and people say, 'that's Middlesbrough'.

"There is this perception that we perform well against the big teams and do not perform so well against the lower teams.

"But it does not have to be that way. We have to bring out the best of our players on a regular basis because they have shown it is there.

"We have to bring in players that can perform week in, week out to the best of their ability."

Woodgate's fee and wage packet will make a sizeable dent in Boro's coffers, although Lamb insists that was budgeted for some time ago.

He said: "When we did the one-year loan with Real Madrid, we included in there an option to buy Jonathan providing everything went okay, so we knew what the cost was going to be.

"We had a provisional agreement with Jonathan way back in August that if we made the deal permanent, we knew what Jonathan's cost would be and what the transfer fee would be as well, so it has not come as a surprise at all."