How Dan Barlaser epitomises 'special' thing Michael Carrick is building at Middlesbrough

Dan Barlaser’s superb contribution epitomises how quickly Michael Carrick has turned a mere team into an intensive competitive squad with promotion potential.

The Middlesbrough midfield man has not found it easy to establish a regular place when everybody is fit, yet his excellent effort at Oxford illustrated just how strongly everybody is fighting for their places and – as a result – producing big wins.

Delano Burgzorg is another who has stepped up the gears in the past couple of weeks and produced the goods for the team. It’s happening throughout the squad. Everybody wants to be involved. Everybody wants to do their best. It reflects the huge level of confidence in the Boro dressing room at the moment.

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During the summer, Carrick and his staff clearly put a lot of work into ensuring that Boro had cover in all positions. Now that the players have finally fully knit together as a unit, it is paying massive dividends. Barlaser has not always had an easy ride, though he played a lot of games last season partly as a result of the horrendous run of injuries.

With Aidan Morris coming in this season, and blending in so quickly and so well alongside Hayden Hackney, Barlaser’s opportunities may be less frequent. Yet he clearly loves the club, loves being involved and produced one of his more dominant performances at Oxford recently.

Carrick clearly has great faith in Barlaser. It’s great to have him around and know that the machine does not lose power when Morris and Hackney are on the sidelines. Jonny Howson is another who is having to battle for pitch time much more than at any period in the past seven years with the Boro.

We always know what we will get from Jonny. He’s a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and will constantly be battling to try to stay in the spotlight. Carrick had to make enforced changes to his starting line-up at Oxford and it made no difference. He knows he can make unenforced changes and get the same outcome.

Burgzorg is another who is now very much in contention when it comes to the starting 11. Delano needed time to find his feet at the Boro but has indicated over the past two weeks that he is very much part of the furniture. He will be pushing stronger than ever for a starting place, which will keep another two or three players on their toes.

It’s also good that Carrick has been able to blood Sol Brynn to great effect. The keeper did himself no harm at all with his superb debut effort and from now on will ensure that Seny Dieng needs to keep looking over his shoulder. Another bonus is seeing Marcus Forss back on the pitch. The Finn still looked some way off the pace but the more pitch time he gets the more quickly he will start to put the pressure on.

Overall it’s great that Carrick has so many options, though for we fans of the club it’s not good that Boro have seven, eight or nine players away on international duty at the same time. Maybe it’s good for the kudos of the players but it leaves everybody wondering who is going to return from the international arena fortnight both mentally and physically fit.

It’s not just the extra game, it’s the travelling long distances which takes its toll. As a total Boro fan, I’d rather we had no internationals on our books. Premier League teams, with much bigger squads than the Boro, can always cope. Yet we coped too at Oxford. The men who stepped up were excellent. It suggests that this is something which Carrick has learned to deal with – with fortunately few negative effects.