MIDDLESBROUGH staged a pre-match press conference with a difference last night as they jetted straight into London from their training break in Spain. Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson was in the capital to speak to Aitor Karanka ahead of tonight’s play-off opener with Brentford

WHEN Middlesbrough missed out on automatic promotion on the penultimate weekend of the regular Championship season, all thoughts turned to an appearance at England’s National Stadium. Just not the one close to where they found themselves last night.

Having travelled to Spain for a four-day training break in the build up to this evening’s play-off semi-final first leg at Brentford, Aitor Karanka and his players flew directly into London to complete their preparations for the game at Griffin Park.

So instead of conducting his traditional pre-match press conference at Rockliffe Park, Karanka found himself in the somewhat incongruous setting of a hotel overlooking Twickenham last night as he outlined how he was going to ensure his side made it to Wembley on May 25.

The Spaniard cannot have imagined hosting the press a stone’ s throw from the home of English rugby when he agreed to move to Teesside a little over 18 months ago, but if you’re going to tackle a media scrum, perhaps you’re best decamping to a place where scrummaging is regarded as an art form.

“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,” said Karanka. “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. It was a very good trip, but let's see what happens in the game.”

Boro returned to the same training base at the Marbella Training Centre they used as part of their pre-season schedule, although Karanka was at pains to point out that their schedule was exactly as it would have been had they still been at Hurworth.

The intention was to break with the normal routine in order to underline the importance of this evening’s play-off opener, and having been concerned at his players’ somewhat lacklustre efforts during the final game of the regular season against Brighton, Karanka is confident there will be a positive reaction to this evening’s high-pressure occasion.

“I wanted to go back (to Marbella) again so they could recognise how difficult this season has been for everybody and how close we are now to promotion,” he said. “We were close a few weeks ago, but now we have to play the play-offs and I think we needed a change of environment.

“I wanted them to feel they are playing a different game, and we have prepared for this game from Monday. We arrived in Marbella on Monday at 12 or one and, before five, we were training and thinking about the game.

“Every single exercise was to prepare us to win, and every exercise was thinking about Brentford and their style and the way that we played here in January (when Boro won 1-0).”

Earlier in the season, Boro pulled off an FA Cup shock by beating a Manchester City side that had only returned from a trip to Dubai 24 hours before kick off.

Manuel Pellegrini was heavily criticised for tampering with his players’ preparations, but Karanka feels it would be unfair to draw parallels with his own decision to return to Spain.

City’s trip to Dubai featured a high-profile friendly game as well as a series of promotional appearances, but Boro’s players were locked away in their training base, with two training sessions scheduled for each full day of their trip.

“We trained really well, and we had a lot of meetings too,” said Karanka. “The players have been speaking about how important the game is and they are all very focused on it.

“The Manchester City situation was different. When they went over there (Dubai), they had a game in the midweek and some events they had to go to. They opened a store there, so it was different.

“We went to Marbella on Monday, and trained Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It was the same training sessions that we are used to at Rockliffe.”

Tonight’s game will be Mark Warburton’s final home game in charge of Brentford, as the head coach has been told he will definitely be leaving no matter what happens between now and the end of the play-off final.

“That just gives me more pride about my chairman,” said Karanka. “When I see things like that, it makes me think about my first five games, when I won just one.

“But he (Steve Gibson) just transmitted to me all his confidence and everything positive. When I see these kind of things, it just makes me more proud of my chairman.”