Boro head to Derby County on Saturday as Michael Carrick’s side aim to make it two Sky Bet Championship wins out of two.
Ahead of the trip to Pride Park, mfc.co.uk takes a closer look at our next opponents…
The background
Derby brought a two-year spell in League One to an end when they secured a second-placed finish last season.
The Rams accrued 92 points over their 46 games to finish second to Portsmouth in what was a hotly-contested promotion race.
They began life back in the Championship in entertaining fashion at Blackburn Rovers last Friday, losing 4-2 despite goals from Curtis Nelson and Kane Wilson.
Derby defeated Chesterfield 2-1 on Tuesday to progress in the Carabao Cup and secure their first win of the season.
The manager
Paul Warne has been in charge at Pride Park since September 2022, and led the club to a seventh-placed finish in the 2022/23 campaign.
That was not quite enough to secure a play-off spot, but Warne earned the fourth League One promotion of his career last term to steer Derby back to the second tier.
Warne’s previous three successes in the division came at Rotherham United, where he was in the hotseat between 2016 and 2022.
Key players
Derby have been active in the summer transfer window, bringing in 13 players to date while several first-team players have departed, including Conor Hourihane, Louie Sibley and Dwight Gayle.
Experienced forward Nathaniel Mendez-Laing is among their standout players. He contributed nine goals in the club’s League One promotion win.
There are also high hopes for summer arrival Kayden Jackson, who achieved promotion in each of the last two seasons with Ipswich Town, and Ben Osborn, formerly of Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United.
The Rams boast plenty of firepower, with Tom Barkhuizen, James Collins, Jerry Yates and Conor Washington also among their ranks, while the likes of Craig Forsyth and Sonny Bradley provide experience at the back.
Past meetings
Boro beat Derby 4-1 at the Riverside in the last meeting between the sides, in February 2022.
We will be looking for our first win at Pride Park since April 2018, when goals from Mo Besic and Britt Assombalonga sealed a 2-1 success.