AITOR Karanka thinks Middlesbrough have a ‘nice opportunity’ to claim a quarter-final place in the FA Cup – even if he warns his players to be wary of the lower league threat.

Oxford United, of League One, will be at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday looking to follow up the previous round’s victory over Newcastle United by stunning their Premier League neighbours.

Middlesbrough will be without Antonio Barragan through injury and midfielder Adlene Guedioura is cup-tied, although George Friend is available again after a calf problem.

Karanka is ready to make changes to face the U’s even though he is focused on progressing to the last eight of the competition, knowing they are potentially 180 minutes away from an appearance at Wembley.

“I have said always that for me every single competition is important, we will try to do our best in every single competition,” said Karanka. “Saturday will be a tough game. We have the experience of the last round when we went to the pitch thinking it would be easy and we had problems against Accrington.

“Our opponents this week beat Newcastle 3-0. We want to win this because the FA Cup is an amazing competition.

"Oxford are dangerous. They have good players, when you analyse them you can feel it is not a coincidence they beat Newcastle 3-0.

“They play good counter-attacks and have a good Spanish player up front who I know. We need to think this is a really important game and we need to be 100 per cent.”

Middlesbrough have been paired with Sheffield Wednesday and Accrington at the Riverside so far in the FA Cup, so after being handed another home game with Oxford it is fair to suggest that the draw has been fair to them.

Karanka said: “In my second season here we had Arsenal and Man City away, this season was Accrington and Sheffield. This will be a really tough game if we don’t go with the right attitude.

“I will choose my strongest team, we have 25 players. I have to think of the three months ahead too. I will put out my best 11 because I want to win the game and I trust every single player in this squad.

“We have been lucky with the draw. The first thing is we are at home. We have a lot of games at home and it’s important to play in front of your own fans.

“Since I arrived here we have made the right steps. Someone asked me about the biggest game here, in the last few years we have had big games and that is good for the crowd so they can live nice moments.”