Karanka admits Bamford is a major injury doubt for play-off semi-final

Boro’s squad returned to England from their four-day training break in Spain this afternoon, and Bamford will be given every chance to prove his fitness for tomorrow’s game at Griffin Park.

However, with the Chelsea loanee having been unable to train properly for a fortnight now, he is regarded as unlikely to start in West London.

Bamford was not involved as Boro drew with Brighton on the final day of the season, and with the second leg of the semi-final due to take place at the Riverside a week tomorrow, Karanka will not be taking any risks.

The Boro head coach said: “I hope he (Bamford) will make it, although he hasn’t been able to train. I won’t be taking a risk because there are two games and if Patrick plays in the first one, it will be because he is ready to play.

“After the game against Brighton, I thought he would be much better this week than he has been. Sometimes, you think injuries will be over after a week, but they take more. For that reason, I cannot take any risks, so we will have to see how he is in the build up to the game.”

Boro’s players have spent four days training in Marbella, and Karanka admits he decided on a change of scenery after he was concerned with his players’ somewhat lacklustre efforts in the final game of the regular campaign.

“I thought after the game at Brighton last Saturday that we needed to change something because we started almost ten months ago and it's a very tough league.

“I thought that we needed a change from the same training pitch, the same venue, the same people. Maybe we would have arrived at Brentford thinking it is a normal game and it's not a normal game.

“For this reason, I thought it was good to go to Marbella but let's see tomorrow.”

Karanka has allowed Dwight Tiendalli to cut short his loan deal and return to Swansea City, but Boro have no new injury problems to contend with ahead of tomorrow’s game.