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'It wasn't like that' - Michael Carrick's pre-match message ahead of Oxford game
MICHAEL CARRICK was delighted with his Middlesbrough side’s form ahead of the international break, but has told his players it is time for a reset ahead of this afternoon’s resumption at Oxford United.
Boro claimed back-to-back wins prior to the international hiatus, scoring nine goals in the space of two games against QPR and Luton Town.
The successive victories lifted the Teessiders to seventh position in the Championship table, their joint-highest standing of the season so far, and suggested Carrick’s side was starting to click after a somewhat mixed start to the campaign.
Understandably, the Boro boss is hoping to maintain the sense of momentum at the Kassam Stadium this afternoon. But, with a number of his players having been away on international duty in the last fortnight, he also accepts the wins over QPR and Luton will mean little when the action resumes against Oxford.
“In terms of the goals, I can totally understand the feeling (that things had changed dramatically in the final two games before the break),” said Carrick. “But honestly, not a lot changed in terms of the performance. It was there, just the goals weren’t 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.”
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A number of different players made major contributions to the wins over QPR and Luton, something Carrick feels is a major positive given the demands that are already being made of his squad. Aidan Morris is set to be sidelined for a number of weeks with a knee injury, while fellow midfielder Hayden Hackney is also a major doubt for today’s game.
“The boys have been scoring goals and sharing the load amongst them as well,” said Carrick. “It’s really encouraging. There are a number of games coming up and the boys understand that we have to be successful together.”
While Boro were not always achieving positive results in the first couple of months of the season, Carrick was always broadly satisfied with the way in which his side was performing.
Not for the first time during his Boro reign, the head coach refused to panic when things were not quite going his side’s way, with his level-headed approach once again paying dividends.
“We can definitely take confidence and positive experience from the recent games,” he said. “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.”
