Boro boss dreaming of Euro elite

MANAGER Steve McClaren takes a second shot at UEFA Cup glory with Middlesbrough admitting this season’s dream is to take the club into the Champions League.

Boro face Greek side Skoda Xanthi at the Riverside Stadium tonight, the first leg of a tie which takes the winners into the group stages of the UEFA Cup.

McClaren's side reached the last 16 last season before going out to eventual finalists Sporting Lisbon, who also knocked out Newcastle before losing to CSKA Moscow in the showpiece match at their own Jose Alvalade Stadium.

Since taking over in 2001, McClaren has halted the club's yo-yo relationship with the top-flight, won a first-ever major trophy and brought European football to the Riverside.

Boro finished seventh in the Premiership last season, and despite being happy with the club's progress, his sights are set higher.

"We have a long way to go to achieve that, but we are gathering a squad together, a nice balanced squad.

"It is like Everton who would have said at the beginning of last season that Everton would qualify for the Champions League?

"It is a dream that you have got there and it is something that you can never dismiss and something that slowly develops over the season.

"It is possible and we are one of the teams that maybe are capable of doing it, but you need a lot of things going your way to get that."

McClaren is confident the lessons he and his players learned in Europe last season will be important.

"If you had seen the amount of work and effort the players put in, it is sweeter this year because we have achieved it again.

"We have got to learn from last year's experiences. I do believe if we had kept a fit squad after Christmas we would have done far better in the UEFA Cup.

"But it is another competition now and one in which we have to qualify for the group and get through the group, and that is our target at the moment."

Victories over the likes of Lazio and Partizan Belgrade last season have inspired optimism among supporters, although McClaren insists those achievements will not necessarily count for anything.

"It does not always work out like that. There are many ingredients to winning a cup and going on a cup run, and we are just hoping we get all those ingredients together to do as well as we did last season and better."

Xanthi finished fourth in last season's Greek league, although little is known of them on Teesside other than they include a familiar face among their ranks in Brazilian midfielder Emerson.

Meanwhile, Everton suffered an injury blow ahead of their UEFA Cup tie against Dinamo Bucharest.

Striker James Beattie was ruled out after a reaction from his toe injury after a 45-minute run-out for the reserves on Tuesday night.

It is another setback for the £6million signing who came off the bench on Saturday in the defeat by Portsmouth.

Manager David Moyes confirmed: "His toe is still sore and we need to get him some games to get him up to match speed.

"We thought we could squeeze in 45 minutes last night but he suffered a setback."

Although the Everton manager will have to cope without the physical presence offered by the former Southampton forward, Moyes is determined to savour the European experience.

The last thing he wants is for their adventure to finish before the month is out.

Everton open their UEFA Cup campaign tonight when they face Dinamo Bucharest in Romania.