Mowbray - Steele committed

Steele: Highly-rated

Middlesbrough boss Tony Mowbray has revealed that highly-rated keeper Jason Steele has no plans to leave the club.

Speculation has linked the 20-year-old, who has emerged as the club's number one this season, with a move to the Premier League in January.

Arsenal were rumoured to be one of the club's monitoring the England Under-21 international, but Mowbray insists that Boro's latest academy product is committed to the cause.

"He's intimated to me that he sees his future here," said Mowbray.

"He's a great lad, he's a very positive boy and in my conversations with him he sees his future here.

"He recognises, and is delighted, that I have faith in him and I see what a good goalkeeper he is and I see only positive signs of trying to develop here. That's his mentality, which is a positive for us.

"Credit it to him that he wants to work hard and show that he is the number one goalkeeper at this football club.

"He's got a very good working relationship with (goalkeeping coach) Stephen Pears and he's seen other goalkeepers produced over the years at this club and he knows it's the right place for his development and that's what he is at the moment, he's a developing young player."

Bench warmers

Steele has seen fellow Boro academy goalkeeping graduates Ross Turnbull and Brad Jones move on to Chelsea and Liverpool respectively, but both are only enjoying warming the substitutes' bench.

"There's been a lot of instances of young keepers who have made a 'big move' probably before they are ready," added Mowbray.

"Why would young goalkeepers want to move from where they are playing at an age of 20 when they can play 'til they are 40? Look at David James.

"Jason's got potentially 20 years in front of him, so I would say: develop, get the games under your belt, play football, become hopefully the best goalkeeper you can be.

"I think Jason's mentality is that he is very much a developing goalkeeper and he thinks he is in the right place to get better and better.

"Somewhere down the line we'll hopefully be extending his contract and settling him down to continue to play for us for a lengthy spell."