Middlesbrough Head Coach Michael Carrick reflected on this season and the challenges the club has faced in terms of injuries and setbacks, and admitted that he has enjoyed dealing with some of the problems. Whilst the club did not make the play-offs, Carrick is viewing this season as a learning curve. Daniel Wales reports.
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00:00I've enjoyed the challenging part, as I said, you can look at it both ways, we're all striving
00:14to win, we love to win every week, there's a massive element to that, there's no hiding
00:19from that, that's why I'm here, it's what we love doing, it's what we want to be doing,
00:22but certainly when there's challenges in football, in embracing them and adapting them, you've
00:30got to enjoy that side of it as well, and sometimes you can feel like it's a bit of
00:34a struggle to get performance or to get results, but you've got to enjoy that side to then
00:38overcome it, so I feel like we've done a lot of good work this year, I've developed individuals,
00:45I've developed a team for us, staff to develop, I think we're in a stronger position and a
00:51good base to move forward and progress for the last two games certainly, but moving into
00:57next season as well.
00:58Carrick went on to speak of how this season can, if viewed correctly, be a learning curve
01:03for all associated with Middlesbrough.
01:06The experience is great if you use it in the right way, we've certainly had that, in some
01:13ways it's maybe like four teams to cycle that we've had this season, over the course of
01:17when we've had the crux of the group of injuries, at certain points the teams end up evolving
01:24quite quickly and going and looking a little bit different, so there's a form of coaching
01:29and a kind of managing side, we've had to manage that and get the best out of the group
01:33quite quickly and do different waves and spells of that, so that's part of the challenge of
01:38what we face really, so that experience itself has helped us to adapt and find different
01:44little ways, and the players have reacted to that really well, so I think hopefully
01:49and I believe that we'll have more variety maybe in our play.
01:58Given the injuries and setbacks faced this season, Carrick was then able to give his
02:02judgement on the campaign as a whole.
02:05I think almost in some ways a lot more positive this year because it's been a challenging
02:11season than last season, we had a bit of a free roll in some ways last season in terms
02:18of injuries and everyone staying fit and the team being pretty consistent and winning,
02:23just didn't quite pull it off at the end last season, but certainly this season's been more
02:27challenging in terms of the players chopping and changing in teams and not being able to
02:32gather consistent teams to build consistent relationships, and I think we've probably
02:37seen that just in terms of, over recently in terms of the boys being fit and a bit more
02:43consistency, you can see how important that can be in terms of team performance really,
02:50to have the connection and the wave lengths with people next year, so I think over the
02:54course of the season, because there's been chops and changes in the teams.