Michael Carrick says Boro are ‘fully aware’ of the challenge Luton Town will provide at the Riverside on Saturday.
Our final fixture before the November international break sees us take on the Hatters in a 12.30pm kick-off.
Here are some of the key quotes from Carrick’s pre-match press conference…
ON AIMING FOR CONSISTENCY…
It’s always something you strive for. You always want to be getting a level of results that carries you through the season. Results-wise we haven’t been consistent enough, but performances have been very good for the most part. That’s always the challenge. We’ve got another game on Saturday and it’s another big one for us, so we’ll take it one step at a time.
ON LUTON TOWN…
Luton are a really, really good team and they’ve got a lot of threats. They were competing fantastically well in the Premier League only a few months ago with a very similar team and playing a very similar way, so we’ve got to respect that a lot. We’re fully aware of the test that’s coming for us. Individuals in that team did themselves a lot of credit in the Premier League and are still playing, so we know what we’re up against.
ON THE LEAGUE TABLE…
We’ve not talked about it at all and I’ve not heard the players talk about it. It goes without saying that if you’re winning games, picking up points and scoring goals it gives you a good feeling, but we don’t make a big deal of it. It doesn’t affect what we talk about or how we approach the game. There’s a natural something you might take from it, but not maybe as much as you might think.
ON FORM AT THE RIVERSIDE…
Performances, for me, have largely been pretty good at home. Largely we’ve been the better team in most of the games. We didn’t start particularly well last week for one of the first times, but other than that we’ve been good within the game most of the time. Earlier on there was a little bit about scoring goals maybe and taking the chances, but the boys have shown they’ve got a feeling and a confidence back for that. I think you can see with the way the boys are playing that there’s a dangerous feel about us and we feel we can score goals, which is great to have. To do it the way we have over the last couple of weeks will give the lads a lot of confidence.
ON THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE…
In general the boys are playing well and are in good shape, so it gives us good choices. It’s not really competition with each other; we’re competing against other teams. Boys want to play and start games, but the impacts the subs make, especially the way they did at QPR, is huge going through the season and everyone has to play their part. The boys all seem to enjoy it and understand that this is part being involved in what we feel is a good team to try to be successful. It’s part of it that the others are going to be good players and you have to share the load a bit.
ON THE U21S DRAMATIC WIN IN MIDWEEK…
I thought they played particularly well, pretty much all the way through the game. They were unfortunate with the second goal but I really enjoyed watching them and there were some really good performances. They deserved to win and never deserved to be behind. It was great to see them finish so strongly and be so happy.
ON DAN BARLASER…
Dan is fantastic. He’s one of the personalities in the group. Every day in training, he’s smiling, trains well, his attitude is good and it’s pretty obvious what quality he has. He’s a big part of the group and has a massive influence. He probably wants to play a little bit more. The boys who have played have done ever so well in there and that’s part of the challenge of being in a good squad with good players. I’m delighted with Dan and the way he goes about it every day. The way he handles everything with his character and personality is absolutely spot on.