New Middlesbrough illness concern delays Carrick planning & Aidan Morris return date

MICHAEL Carrick will assess his Middlesbrough squad on Friday before making team selection decisions for Millwall, with the head coach revealing members of his squad have again been struck down by illness.

As well as Dael Fry, who missed Tuesday night's game at Leeds, Riley McGree is also now under the weather and battling a chest infection.

Carrick said he "thought he'd seen the back" of the illness that swept through the camp a couple of weeks ago but will now have to take stock on Friday before finalising his plans for the weekend game.

It's not yet clear whether Fry will be ready to return against Millwall.

Carrick said: “We’ve still got a bit of illness knocking about the place actually. Dael, we’ll have to see. He obviously wasn’t right for the other night, so we’ll have to see closer to Saturday, if and when he’s ready.”

Asked whether others could also be missing because of illness, Carrick said: "Possibly. Riley has a bit of a chest infection as well. We'll see how he is.

"There's a little bit knocking about. We thought we'd seen the back of it. They're all a little bit different in some ways but we'll see how everyone is tomorrow."

Rav van den Berg and Lukas Engel have been back in training and could be pushing for a return to the squad on Saturday, though Carrick wasn't giving much away.

He said: “We’ve got a strong squad. We’ve got boys getting back into training, though we have had a couple of bouts of illness. There are some of the injured boys in and around it, whereas some are a bit further than others. But we’ve got a strong group and we’ll look forward to Saturday’s game.”

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Aidan Morris is not yet back in full training with the squad but is making good progress in his recovery from his knee injury and could return to action in the next fortnight, though the trip to Plymouth a week on Saturday feels unlikely.

Carrick said: “Aidan’s not training with us yet, but he’s doing his rehab and is out on the grass and progressing particularly well. We’ll just have to see how quick that’s going to be. It should be in and around Christmas, maybe before.

"We’ll see how that goes without putting any pressure on that. Hopefully that won’t be too long.”