Middlesbrough’s Michael Carrick confident players understand Sunderland fixture meaning

National World - LocalTV

Middlesbrough Head Coach Michael Carrick has made clear his belief that his players are well aware of the meaning of their upcoming fixture against Sunderland. Daniel Wales reports.

Transcript

00:00Middlesbrough have been one of the most active clubs in the transfer window in terms of incomings,

00:06with Morgan Whittaker of Plymouth being the standout signing of a busy month on Teesside.

00:11With local rival Sunderland making the short trip up the A19 on Monday, it could well be

00:16a game for new stars to shine.

00:19Borough would also appear to be on the verge of losing top goalscorer Emmanuel Latte-Lath

00:24to American side Atlanta United, but with Whittaker coming in the goals will by no means

00:29completely dry up. Losing a player like Latte-Lath will undoubtedly be a blow, but the intent

00:34is still there, at the club, to be in the play-offs.

00:40Michael Carrick outlined that as a group, his players are still pushing and are not

00:43satisfied with their current position in the championship.

00:47Yeah, I think this shows we're pushing and we want to keep improving. I think we're never

00:53really satisfied, we're certainly not satisfied quite at the moment where we are and we want

00:58to keep pushing, but yeah, I'd take that for that. I think the boys within the group, they're

01:06hungry for more, they're pushing each other and they get frustrated or a little bit disappointed

01:09at times and that's a good sign because we expect more from each other and we know it's

01:15in us to do that, so I'd certainly see that of eyes up really and looking ahead of us

01:22to see how we can get better. Sometimes that's working on the pitch training, sometimes that's

01:27game-to-game, sometimes that's trying to sell windows and trying to improve the group and

01:31trying to improve the squad.

01:33The visit of Sunderland presents more than just another fixture in the championship,

01:38with Carrick being in no doubt that his players understood the meaning of the game.

01:43I think, I know for sure the boys get it, the boys get it, they know what these games

01:49mean for us within the football club, certainly for the supporters and what it means to them

01:55and how it affects their everyday lives in the weeks and the days leading up to the game

02:00and certainly after the game, so we're well aware of that, the boys are well aware of

02:05that and that's what adds to these types of games and makes them special.

02:08Last time out against Preston was not Borough's best defensive display, something which Carrick

02:12was well aware of and has analysed with the aim of improvement.

02:16It's the flow of how the goal came about maybe, what led up to it, what can we do better as

02:21a team, in terms of defensively, in terms of numbers of shots and things we're giving away,

02:29we're near the top of the league in terms of number of shots, I think it's a little bit on

02:33that conversion rate for the opposition is too high for us really and that's something we spoke

02:40about and we need to do something about, but in terms of giving a lot away, we're not giving a

02:45lot away, I think we're about fourth in terms of shots against, so from a coaching point of view,

02:50we take that as a positive, but we've got to put that into the reality of results and goals.

Category

Transcript

Recommended