GARRY MONK has hailed Stewart Downing as one of Middlesbrough’s “leaders”, even though the midfielder could have been lining up against his hometown team this evening had things turned out differently in the summer.

Downing will be part of the Middlesbrough squad that travel to Aston Villa in the third round of the Carabao Cup tonight, having been restored to the first-team group when he did not move on during the transfer window.

Villa were one of the clubs to inquire about Downing’s situation when he was told he was free to seek alternative employers at the start of the summer, with Steve Bruce having made a similar approach in an attempt to set up a loan deal in January, but the former England international opted to remain at the Riverside to fight for his place rather than move elsewhere.

Monk was quick to reintroduce him to the fold, with the decision to make Downing available for transfer having been taken for financial rather than footballing reasons. The 33-year-old has started Boro’s last three league games, and while he might find himself on the bench tonight with Monk keen to shuffle his resources, he is set to be a pivotal performer for the rest of the campaign.

“The private conversations I have had will remain private,” said the Boro boss, who will be looking to improve on last week’s goalless draw at Villa Park in the Championship. “But the players who are in the first-team environment are the ones who I want in there.

“It’s my job to give them the platform to do their best, and Stewart has been fantastic. We had a conversation at pre-season, I gave him my honest views. But how he has been around the group, how he has trained, that is why he is playing.

“Credit to him. Whatever decisions you make on players, when they are under your guidance it is your job to push them and get the best out of them. He is an important player in that group, an important member in that dressing room, a leader.”

With a decade-and-a-half of senior football under his belt, Downing is one of the most experienced players in the whole of the Championship.

He forms part of an experienced core within the Boro squad, along with the likes of Darren Randolph, Adam Clayton, Jonny Howson and Grant Leadbitter, and is playing an influential role in aiding the development of players at the opposite end of their career, such as Dael Fray, Lewis Baker, Adama Traore and Ashley Fletcher.

“He understands his experience can be passed on to the new players,” said Monk, who is only five years older than Downing, and whose playing career extensively overlapped with that of the winger. “We have a good group, and the spirit is high.

“They were not happy sat in there on Saturday (after the QPR game) because of the performance overall, but when you think of the week they have had, they have done exceptionally well. They want to push each other to get better, and that’s what is important.”

Boro are in the midst of a hectic schedule that will have seen them play seven games in the space of 22 days by the time they head into the next international break after taking on Brentford a week on Saturday.

That inevitably means there will be changes tonight, with Monk having made nine alterations for his side’s Carabao Cup second-round win over Scunthorpe United at the end of last month.

Ryan Shotton is unavailable after playing for Birmingham City in the second round, while Adama Traore and Adam Clayton are both suspended and Martin Braithwaite will not be risked despite having almost completed his return from injury.

Connor Roberts is in line for a starting spot after featuring against Scunthorpe though, and the likes of Dimi Konstantopoulos, George Friend, Adam Forshaw and Patrick Bamford should also be involved after finding themselves on the substitutes’ bench at the weekend.

“I am going to have assess the squad,” said Monk. “It’s a short turnaround again and we’ll have to see what we have available, see how they are, the freshness. I will make decisions on what is best for the whole squad.

“There are some players who maybe haven’t played as many minutes last week as they have deserved, so I will see. I will monitor them in training, get a feel for it and then whatever team I send out will still have the intention to win.

“We don’t have the biggest of squads, but we’ve tried to focus on quality and competition. The way they train, the competition is high and I have difficult decisions. That’s how you want it.

“I want difficult decisions. Any of the players who I send out will deserve to play. We want to be at our best. You can’t be in every single game in this league, it’s impossible, but we can see what we are trying to do. Whoever plays will give 100 per cent to do themselves justice.”

Middlesbrough (possible, 4-3-3): Konstantopoulos; Roberts, Ayala, Fry, Friend; Forshaw, Leadbitter, Howson; Bamford, Fletcher, Downing.