MICHAEL Carrick has emphatically dismissed suggestions that Middlesbrough could have avoided their current injury crisis and is putting the string of setbacks down to misfortune rather than anything Boro have or haven't done on the training pitches at Rockliffe.
Boro have won successive games in the Championship to close the gap on the top six to just two points but head for Swansea City tomorrow without more than half a dozen first team players.
As well as the long term absentees such as Seny Dieng, Sol Brynn, Alex Bangura and Darragh Lenihan, Boro have suffered a catalogue of further setbacks in recent weeks, with George Edmundson, Rav van den Berg and Luke Ayling all suffering injuries that are expected to rule them out until at least after the international break.
That followed injuries to Riley McGree and Ben Doak, with the Liverpool loanee having now had to undergo surgery after his thigh problem turned out to be worse than first anticipated.
But Carrick says Boro have simply been the victims of misfortune.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Asked whether they could have done anything differently to avoid the setbacks, he said: "Not when you look at those injuries, it's impossible.
"It's knee, two ankles, it's impact injuries - it's one of those things and there's not much we can do about it.
"We've had it at times, sometimes there are injuries you can do something about but there are certain times when they're just thrown at you.
"It's how and why you ask yourself and there's not really much you can do. Unfortunately that's where we've found ourselves lately but it doesn't deter us and knock us off and we're still looking forward to putting a team out that we feel can win the game."
To add to the frustration for Boro, the injuries have come at a crunch stage of the season, with little room for error in run-in in the competitive battle for fifth and sixth place in the Championship.
Despite the injury woe, Carrick won't feel sorry for himself and insists Boro can deal with the setbacks.
He said: "It kind of reminds me of last season, we played Preston and Jonny and Hayden both done their knee five minutes apart from two tackles. What do you do? You have to tackle. For some reason little clusters have happened in similar positions.
"The game is the game and for whatever reason these have happened over the last week or two. It's just something we have to deal with. We can assess it, what could we have done? Sometimes you have to just bounce on and focus on what's next."
