AITOR KARANKA has called on the spirit of the Wolves game on Tuesday night to lift Middlesbrough back to the top of the Championship’s promotion chasers tomorrow.

Boro have flown down to Norfolk this afternoon ahead of the crucial Friday night fixture at Norwich City which will see the winners climb above Bournemouth at the top of the division.

Middlesbrough have Jonathan Woodgate, Albert Adomah and Daniel Ayala travelling to Carrow Road, where their state of fitness will be determined before the head coach selects his starting line-up.

Karanka said: “I have to check on Woody and Albert because they couldn't train today. There's Woody, Dani and Albert but I think all of them will travel because they all want to play so let's see how they are.

“I think all of the players are excited because we were upset and disappointed after the Watford game but I said that day that we were doing a miracle fighting with these teams at this stage of the season.

“For us it is a present because we deserve to be in that position because the players deserve to be in this position because they have been working hard since June, July.”

Norwich are second-placed ahead of facing Middlesbrough but the Teessiders have given themselves a real boost ahead of the trip to East Anglia by winning back-to-back home dates with Rotherham and Wolves.

Karanka said: “We have to play with the same intensity that we did in the first half against Wolves. We need to play with intensity for 95, 96 minutes.

“Norwich are a Premier League team, they have been very good in the second half of the season, they have a very good manager, a very good squad, the stadium is going to be full so it is going to be an amazing game and we have to learn from Watford and Bournemouth and what happened there.

“It will be another amazing game for everybody but especially us. Finishing the season with this kind of game for us is amazing because at the beginning of the season nobody could imagine us playing in a game like this.

“We are very, very confident after our game on Tuesday, everybody could see the team playing at their best and we are confident but it will be a difficult game because they are a Premier League team.”

Asked if he felt the losers on Friday night would miss out on automatic promotion, Karanka added: “I think so because everybody is expecting Bournemouth, Norwich, us and Watford to lose a game but nobody is losing games.

“With two games to go, five or four points below the (automatic) promotion position is going to be very, very difficult. We will go to the game confident we can beat them but if we think that it is going to be easy because we played against Wolves, no, it will be very different.”

Midfielder Grant Leadbitter, who remains the team’s second’s highest scorer, is back from suspension and pushing Adam Forshaw for his starting spot.