EMMANUEL Latte Lath is set to be involved for Middlesbrough at Portsmouth this weekend, despite the uncertainty surrounding his future.

Latte Lath is the subject of a £20m bid from Atlanta United, with talks continuing between Boro and the MLS club.

Several other interested clubs continue to monitor Latte Lath's situation and it remains unclear as to whether any further bids will be tabled in the coming days, but it's looking increasingly likely that Boro's top scorer will leave the club this month.

Carrick, though, insists Latte Lath remains focused and the head coach has been extremely impressed with the striker in training this week. Unless there's any dramatic change to the situation in the coming hours, Latte Lath will travel south with the Boro squad on Friday feature on Saturday.

"Yeah, 100 per cent, he's 100 per cent with us," said Carrick, when asked whether Latte Lath will feature at Portsmouth.

"Manu is our player, he's trained fantastic this week. Very, very well this week actually. He's looking forward to the game on Saturday."

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After Ipswich's failed move on deadline day in the summer, and with Latte Lath having again impressed in the Championship in the first half of the season, Boro were again braced for interest in the striker this month.

And while they weren't actively looking to offload Latte Lath in the winter window, they have planned for the possibility of his exit and have spent the last few months monitoring and lining up potential striker targets.

Carrick said: "I've said it before, we understand how it works for sure. We have a lot of good players at different stages of their career. Just like we'll be looking at players from other clubs, teams will be looking at our players and thinking is it something they can go for or make their team better.

"We understand that, that's how it is. It's something you have to accept and take it as a positive, we have a lot of good players here."

Carrick remains hopeful that Boro can hold on to Liverpool loanee Ben Doak this month. Crystal Palace and Ipswich had bids for the winger rejected earlier in the window, but haven't yet returned with improved offers and from Boro's perspective no news is good news.

He said: "We understand the situation. From our point of view there's zero distractions. Ben has been the same, he's trained fantastically well. I'm happy and delighted with the way it's going."

Boro are also keen on re-signing former loanee Ryan Giles before the end of the window. Preliminary talks have taken place with Hull City but Carrick wouldn't be drawn on the pursuit of the left-back.

He said: "There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to talk about individual players from other clubs.

"There are so many different rumours and speculation, some true and some false, well quite a lot false.

"All I can say is that we’re working hard to improve things, whoever that may be, but we are largely happy with the group that we have. It’s getting that balance right.

"At this stage we are positive that we can try and improve things but still largely happy with what we’ve got."