Middlesbrough set Championship challenge as season enters Michael Carrick's favourite part

Michael Carrick has challenged his Middlesbrough players to maintain their pre-international break form as they head into a busy period that is likely to result in the Championship table taking shape.

Boro finally showed signs of the side many tipped them to be this season as they won consecutive games before the break, netting nine goals in the process. In that sense, you might say the break came at the worst possible time for Boro, and there will certainly be relief for many that it was the final break of the calendar year, with Carrick's side now facing an uninterrupted schedule between now and the end of March.

Heading into that period, Boro sit just outside the Championship top six and even still within touching distance of the top two. It makes it a crucial period for them, with the Boro boss convinced everything is to be decided in the weeks and months ahead.

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“It is what it is and I think that we’ve been pretty consistent through the season on performance levels and results have not always been as consistent as the performances," said Carrick when asked about the ill-timing of the international break. "We’ve adapted at international breaks and I don’t expect it to make too much difference.

"It was a good way to end that small chapter in the season with those two good wins. Now we are at that stage where it’s a longer run all the way through until March without any other real distractions and we’ll get our teeth into that. It’s a longer period for sure but in terms of how the games come, it’s pretty much the same rhythm really, you just don’t get that break in the middle.

"I don’t think that it’s a crazy schedule really, but, for sure, it’s a much longer kind of chapter and more will get decided between now and March as by the time you come out of it you are not far from the end of the season. It’s the part of the season that I really enjoy in getting to the thick of it and the boys will be ready for it."

Boro return to action this afternoon at Oxford United, who have had a positive start to their first season in the second tier for a quarter of a century. Boro will head into the game full of confidence, with many feeling their pre-break form was a sign that things had finally clicked for them after an inconsistent and at times frustrating start to the season.

“In terms of the goals, I can totally understand the feeling," Carrick opined. "Honestly, not a lot changed in terms of the performance. It was there, just the goals were going in. That gives us that extra bit of confidence and extra bit of spark and energy. The boys will definitely benefit from that and we always felt it was coming.

"But now, it’s a clean slate and we’ve got to do it all over again and reproduce that in the games ahead of us. The boys have been scoring goals and sharing the load amongst them as well. It’s really encouraging. There are a number of games coming up and the boys understand that we have to be successful together.

“It’s always what’s next anyway - next game or next batch. We can definitely take confidence and positive experience from the recent games - what’s working for us, what we may need to tweak or improve on. That kind of thing is ongoing.

"But I think the boys are benefiting from the start of the season that we’ve had - always doing the right things. Sometimes we got the rewards for that, other times we didn’t. But they always kept doing the right things and got good rewards for that over the last three or four weeks. Now we need to build on that and keep improving to keep the momentum going."

While Carrick will hope his side have enough quality to leave Oxford with all three points by winning a third straight game for the first time this season, he knows the U's are not to be underestimated. Though underdogs on paper in this one, they've lost only once at the Kassam Stadium so far.

Carrick previewed: "They’ve adapted and attacked the league very well. I think that pretty much every game they’ve been involved in has been really, really tight so it’s a tough game going down there. They are really well organised, they don’t give much away. But we’ll definitely be prepared for it and know what we are facing for sure"