MICHAEL Carrick admits it's too early to know the severity of Emmanuel Latte Lath's groin injury after the striker was forced off early on in the defeat to Preston.

Latte Lath pulled up after just 11 minutes after trying to latch on to a through ball and, after trying and failing to continue, had to be replaced by Marcus Forss.

Boro and Latte Lath must now wait to discover the extent of the injury and at this stage it's unclear whether the Deepdale development will have any impact on the striker's future, with Atlanta United having bid for the Ivorian earlier this month.

"He felt his groin, how badly and to what extent, I don’t know," said Carrick.

"We’ll have to wait and see, he felt his groin quite early on. That was a blow for us but I thought we dealt with that well, moved on from it, still felt we should’ve won the game, it’s a blow, we’ll have to see how Manu is - hopefully it’s not too long."

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Boro now have a nine-day break until their next game against Sunderland - on deadline day. Forss and Delano Burgzorg, who scored Boro's goal in a 2-1 defeat, both had stints up-front in the Preston defeat, with Tommy Conway still sidelined. It's not clear whether the Scotland international will be ready to return against the Black Cats.

"We'll have to wait and see," said Carrick.

"He's close-ish but he's been out for some time so that's a decision we'll make. He hasn't trained with us yet."

Meanwhile, Seny Dieng faces a long spell on the sidelines after suffering an Achilles injury in training this week.

"Unfortunately Seny has needed to have an operation on his Achilles," said Carrick.

"He's going to be out for a bit of time."

Boro were already in the market for a new goalkeeper this month following Sol Brynn's injury.

Carrick said: "We have Tom who has done well and we had Shea [Connor] on the bench, so it's definitely something we need to look at."

Carrick also confirmed Lukas Engel is close to completing a move to FC Cincinnati. The defender is set to join the MLS side on an initial loan with an option for the deal to be made permanent.

Carrick said: "Lukas is over there at this moment, so that's looking like it will go through."