Signing more forward firepower always looked like a top priority for Chris Wilder and Middlesbrough this summer as they look to push for promotion in the 2022/23 Championship season. 

Brentford's Marcus Forss has emerged as a target, with Football Insider reporting on Monday that Boro were plotting a move for the 23-year-old as one of three new strikers that the manager is keen to recruit before the summer window closes.

Forss failed to fire while on loan at Hull City in the second half of last season but has an impressive goalscoring record in his career – having scored 19 goals in 2,678 minutes of senior football across 74 appearances for the Bees (a goal every 141 minutes) and 11 in 1,377 minutes across 19 games while on loan at Wimbledon (a goal every 125 minutes).

The Northern Echo has since reported that the North East club are closing in on signing the Finland international and that further talks are planned for the coming days with the Teessiders optimistic they can convince him to join them while the Yorkshire Post has claimed they're poised to complete the deal.

Having signed a contract with the Bees in 2020, Forss still has four years left to run on his current deal at the Brentford Community Stadium.

He was deemed excess to requirements by the west London club back in January and it is understood that an option to buy was included in the loan deal, which suggests they're open to letting him leave permanently.

Halil Dervisoglu appears to have moved ahead of him in the pecking order at Brenford as, according to The Athletic, he was taken on the pre-season tour to Germany and Forss was left at home to play with the club's B team while Keane Lewis-Potter has joined in a big-money move from Hull City.

With Ivan Toney clearly Thomas Frank's first choice, it does seem as though the pieces are in place to allow the Finnish forward to depart.