NEIL WARNOCK accepts the next seven days are ‘do or die time’ when it comes to Middlesbrough’s faltering hopes of scrambling into the play-offs.

With 11 games of the season to go, Boro find themselves eight points adrift of the play-off positions after winning just one of their last four matches.

Tenth-placed Stoke City visit the Riverside this afternoon, with Boro also due to face Preston and Millwall before the start of the international break after next weekend.

Win all three matches, and they will thrust themselves back into the heart of the promotion mix. Fall short, however, and attention will switch to planning for the start of next season.

“The lads know how important these next couple of games are,” said Warnock. “I think this next week, that’s it now really. It’s hit or miss for us now. If we don’t get the points in the next three games, we’ll have to start looking ahead and giving one or two people games to see how they are between now and the end of the season.

“I certainly don’t want us to go out of the mix – I’d like us to stay right in there until the end of the season, and I’m sure the players will be thinking that too. I think we could quite easily have got ten more points than we have without breaking sweat, that’s the frustration.

“I’m gutted we’re not right up there, especially when you look at the clubs that are. But we’ll see what happens. I’m looking at the character of some of the players now. They know I’m looking because I’m here next season, so it’s a question of whether I’ll want them here. If I was one of our players, I’d want to be here next season with the excitement of having fans back and the team we’re building. They’ve got to show me that they want to stay.”

The odds are stacked against Warnock’s side, with seven or eight wins from the remaining 11 matches almost certainly a minimum requirement if they are to make a successful late surge into the top six.

Such a scenario has played out before though, with Warnock having guided Huddersfield Town to promotion from a similarly unpromising position in the early 1990s.

“It’s not impossible,” he said. “When I was at Huddersfield, we won the last five or six games to get into the play-offs in sixth position. We just crept in, and then we won the play-offs. It just shows you. It’s easier said than done, but that has to be the target. It can happen.”

Ashley Fletcher has returned to training in the last couple of days, but Warnock is reluctant to risk the striker this afternoon.

Fletcher suffered a muscular injury in last month’s home defeat to Bristol City, having earlier been forced to sit out four months of the season with a serious hamstring issue.

“Fletcher trained with us (on Thursday) – he did all the games and everything – but I know what the medical people will say,” said Warnock. “They’re saying that if he plays and it goes, it’s my fault. So what do you do? At the moment, I’m tempted not to play him, but I’ll see Fletch later. He’s going to train with us, and when you see him train, you think he’s fit.”

Marcus Tavernier is also closing in on a return to fitness, but as is the case with Fletcher, Warnock is minded to give the midfielder another few days before restoring him to the first team.

“Tavernier’s not as bad as we thought,” he said. “I might not risk him (against Stoke), but I think he should be okay next week to be involved at some stage.”

Middlesbrough (probable, 5-3-2): Bettinelli; Fisher, Hall, Fry, McNair, Bola; Saville, Howson, Kebano; Bolasie, Watmore.