MICHAEL Carrick has challenged his in-form Middlesbrough team to finish the season with five straight wins and gatecrash the Championship's play-off places.

Boro are the Championship's form side and extended their unbeaten stretch to seven games with a 2-0 win over Swansea City at the Riverside on Saturday.

But rivals Norwich, Coventry and Hull - who Boro face on Wednesday - all won, so Carrick's side remain six points adrift of the top six with five games to play.

After the Hull trip, Boro face automatic promotion chasing Ipswich and Leeds before finishing the season with games against Cardiff and Watford - and Carrick admits his side might need 15 points if they're to force their way into the play-offs.

"Maybe, maybe yeah," he said.

"It's difficult to say. It's that time of year when results get thrown up. Who knows, we just have to keep going one game at a time. Especially with the games coming up, there's no way we can take our eye off the ball. We'll keep fighting and give ourselves a chance. The longer we're in and still have a chance, the better."

Carrick praised his players for digging deep to win an ugly game against Swansea, with Emmanuel Latte Lath hitting a double.

"That's all we can do at this stage. We're coming from behind, we've put a bit of a run together, we just have to try and extend that as long as we can," said the head coach.

"Wednesday is a new challenge and will have a bit of a say on what the picture looks like after that. We just have to keep chipping away and see how we end up."

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Boro's players had watched Norwich's win over Ipswich in the dressing room before the game against Swansea, but Finn Azaz - who created Latte Lath's second goal on Saturday - says Carrick's men need to ignore what is happening elsewhere and just concentrating and taking care of their own business in the final weeks of the season.

"We have a big week coming up and hopefully our levels will go up for that," said the January signing from Aston Villa.

"All we can do is keep focus on ourselves and keep pushing. We can’t look at or listen to the outside too much, and instead just focus on our job and what we can do.

"We know the position we’re in, but all we can do is focus on doing our job in each game and keep pushing.

"There’s not much value in constantly looking at the table. But at the same time, we know that if we can continue winning games it gives us a chance.

"We had the Norwich game on in the changing room before the game until about 60 minutes and then we switched it off because that was the time to start focusing on what we had to do. You can’t look at other results too much, you have to think about yourselves."