This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Fan Perspective’ series, this content strand is where we deliver an opinion-based outlook from the perspective of a certain club's fanbase on the matter at hand…

It's not a happy time to be a Middlesbrough supporter.

After the high of being promoted to the Premier League under Aitor Karanka, it seems that everything positive around the club has slowly broken away leaving the club in royal mess.

Reaching the top flight is meant to be the holy grail of achievements for a Championship side, but instead it led the Teessiders into tricky situation that's entirely of their own making.

After relegation was confirmed, Garry Monk was the man who was backed to guide Middlesbrough back into the top flight at the first attempt.

He splashed the cash and everyone rather naively forgot just how difficult it is to get out of the Championship in the first place.

Monk didn't last long though, with Steve Gibson and the Boro hierarchy choosing to get rid with performances way below expectation for a side who were hoping to take the Championship by storm.

Tony Pulis arrived and although it wasn't pretty, he managed to grind out enough points to see Boro sneak into the play-offs.

Unfortunately, when they were knocked out with a whimper against Aston Villa, this is when the wheels started to come off.

Such was the huge spending spree taken on after being promoted, and then subsequently relegated, the Teessiders were under pressure to dismantle a rather expensive looking squad, with Ben Gibson, Adama Traore and Patrick Bamford all sold on.

Yes, decent money was received, but what Middlesbrough had lost was arguably their three most influential players.

Last season saw Tony Pulis narrowly miss out on the play-offs as he forged a patched-up squad of what was left of the golden Premier League days, but with Traore and Bamford now gone, it was always going to be difficult to win enough games to secure promotion.

That brings us to this season and the woeful start that we've seen under Jonathan Woodgate.

You can't blame the former defender for what's happening at the club. What's going on is way above his pay grade.

Financial Fair Play is beginning to bite, and a summer of excessive spending and two years of Premier League wages being spent on Championship players, Steve Gibson is taking drastic action to ensure that the team comply with FFP rules.

With that has come a new business model based on signing young, undervalued players and continuing the process of offloading the well-paid senior stars who frankly, haven't quite lived up to expectation.

Supporters are right to feel frustrated by what has happened at the club over the last three years, after all, the club could have been safe from financial pressure if their budget had been managed correctly.

Instead, fans are left to cling on to the hope of a potentially fruitful future if the club can instil a new attacking philosophy and develop some of the talented young players at the club.

We've all heard the 'season of transition' line; let's just hope that the damage of the last three years doesn't take any longer to undo.