MIDDLESBROUGH have already shown they can deliver when it matters and George Friend thinks a Premier League place beckons if the players can do exactly what Aitor Karanka tells them to.

Karanka’s methods have won over everyone at the Teesside club, with the members of the backroom and playing staff all regularly explaining over the last 18 months how they have learned from the Spaniard’s way.

Friend is no different and, after being named in the Championship’s PFA team of the year, the forward thinking defender thinks Norwich have every reason to be afraid if the Boro team can put the head coach’s plans in to practice at Wembley on Monday.

The reliable left-back said: “I think the manager will set out how he wants us to play, tactically we will have a plan and if we execute it like we did against Brentford we will win the game ... I really believe that.

“I don't want to take anything away from Norwich, they are a really good side and they've got Premier League quality in that team, so we will have to be at our best, but I'm very confident to a man we've got a good enough team.”

While the foundations were laid after years of cost cutting at the Riverside by Tony Mowbray, Karanka has adapted seamlessly to his first frontline management post since accepting the job in October 2013.

The former Real Madrid man will have known very little about the Championship, or the squad he inherited at that point, but has found a way of getting the best out of them, which has put them on the brink of a Premier League return for the first time since 2009.

Friend said: “Where do I start? His preparation is meticulous, he is very experienced as a player and he's worked with Jose Mourinho - the best manager in the world.

“He’s a good man manager and he's brought a lot to the team and to individuals and for me personally he's brought me on leaps and bounds as a player. He said to us he'd never been to Wembley before so let's hope it's a successful first time for him. It's down to the manager how we have such a great defensive record, when he came in he reshaped us.

“He really worked on everything and it's not just the back four, it's everyone, it's from the front, everyone works hard and I think it shows in our game plan in both legs against Brentford how resolute we were and tactically we were superior. If we can match that at Wembley I think we will be OK.”

Friend is 27 and has been determined to work his way back to Premier League, given his only outing at that level was for Wolves at Manchester United in December 2009. That was the day when United won 3-0 and Mick McCarthy was lambasted for fielding a weakened team.

He said: “First, it's something I've always wanted to do ever since I joined Middlesbrough. When I joined the club everything indicated that this is a Premier League club and having lived in Teesside it would mean so much to everybody.

“It's a fantastic place to live, there are great people around here and it would be everybody getting promoted, that's for sure, everyone around here, not just those people involved with the club. It's a fantastic area that deserves it.”

Boro have beaten Norwich twice this season, scoring five goals without reply. The Canaries are a different proposition under Alex Neil, though, and Friend will not be taking anything for granted when the most lucrative football fixture in the world takes place at Wembley.

Friend said: “I don't think it makes much difference when you pull up at Wembley who you are playing, we didn't have a preference out of the two.

“They are a good side, a really good side, we can perhaps take a bit of confidence and look at what we did to beat them those two times, especially the away game, it was a tight affair. But they are a really good side so we will respect them but still be confident that we can beat them.

“We deserve to be at this stage in the same way Norwich deserve to be where they are. We probably, when it came down to it, didn't deserve to go up automatically, although a lot of people thought we would get there and we, ourselves, thought we'd get there, but Bournemouth were rightly champions and I thought they were fantastic this year.

“But to be in this play-off final was the minimum we all thought as a squad, especially when we were topping the league at times. We deserve to be here and we deserve to go up but we won't deserve to if we don't play well on Monday.”