AITOR KARANKA will take his Middlesbrough squad to Spain this morning buoyed by confirmation that Victor Valdes will not face any disciplinary action following his weekend altercation with Dele Alli.

Boro’s players will spend the next four days preparing for Saturday’s crucial home game with Everton at a training base on the outskirts of Benidorm, with Valdes available to play against the Toffees after referee Mark Clattenburg informed FA officials he had seen the goalkeeper’s weekend clash with Alli.

Valdes raised his arm to Alli’s face in the early stages of Boro’s 1-0 defeat at White Hart Lane, but was not even booked for his actions.

Had Clattenburg missed the incident, Valdes could have been charged retrospectively, but the North-East official mentioned the flashpoint in his report and was satisfied he had dealt with it adequately. As a result, Valdes will be in goal at the weekend as Boro look to increase the one-point gap that currently separates them from the relegation zone.

Last weekend’s defeat to Spurs made it seven Premier League games without a victory, and Karanka will take his players to Spain this morning hoping a change of scenery results in a change of fortunes on the field.

It is the third season in a row that Karanka has taken his players to his homeland for a mid-season break, with Boro having travelled to the Marbella Football centre last February, nine months after they used the same venue in the build-up to the play-off semi-final with Brentford.

They are heading to a different base located on the edge of Benidorm this time around, and are not due to fly back into England until Friday afternoon.

Karanka will combine double training sessions with some team-bonding activities, and will be hoping to quickly draw a line under the disappointment of Saturday’s defeat, which came courtesy of a second-half penalty from Harry Kane.

Boro matched Spurs for long periods of the game, but did not really threaten until Marten de Roon passed up a great chance of an equaliser in the dying seconds.

The defeat means Boro are now just a point ahead of 18th-placed Hull City, but with six of the club’s next eight games pitting them against teams in the bottom half of the table, stand-in skipper Ben Gibson insists there is still plenty of cause for optimism.

“No one said it was going to be easy,” said Gibson. “It wasn’t easy getting out of the Championship last year, and it certainly wasn’t going to be easy surviving in the Premier League. Anyone who thought because we got a few early results it would be easy was wrong and naïve.

“But we’ve got to survive relegation. Let’s not mess about, that has always been our aim from day one. As a team and as a squad, we have never looked at anything other than that, and at the minute, we are doing that and that’s something we’ll continue to do.

“Every single game we’ll be fighting and, yes, results haven’t come our way at the minute, but if we can keep playing in that intensity, in that manner, and keep fighting for every ball, then I really believe we’ll be okay.”

Boro are set to appoint former Elche goalkeeping coach Marcos Abad as their latest temporary replacement for the injured Leo Percovich.

With Percovich unavailable after undergoing Achilles surgery, Boro brought in Eric Steele to plug the gap, but the former Manchester United coach picked up an injury of his own and was forced to step down.

Karanka has subsequently turned to Abad, who worked at Elche with Victor Orta and Paco Peral, both of whom have left Spain in the last 12 months to move to Middlesbrough.

Abad met with Elche officials yesterday to terminate his contract, which had been due to expire at the end of the season, and is set to begin his temporary role with Boro’s first-team squad shortly.

Former Middlesbrough striker Ayegbeni Yakubu is currently on trial with League One strugglers Coventry City.

Yakubu, who scored 35 goals in 88 starts during his two seasons on Teesside, is currently without a club, having left Kayserispor following an unsuccessful spell in the Turkish Super Lig.