MIDDLESBROUGH'S defensive injury crisis has deepened over the international break leaving Sol Bamba as the only fit defender in his squad. 

Bamba, 36, has started in Boro's last two league games and was expected to be used as cover in the squad. Now, he faces the prospect of playing alongside a makeshift defensive line as the club received bad news about fellow defenders.

Grant Hall and Dael Fry are set for a spell on the sidelines while Marc Bola has become the latest casuality.

The left-back has been playing through the pain barrier after recovering from a hernia problem over the summer. 

“It seems to be all defenders at the moment” manager Neil Warnock said. 

“Grant Hall and Dael Fry will be our for three or four weeks.

“Anfernee Dijksteel is out, Marc Bola went down yesterday, I can’t see either of them coming back before Cardiff.

“Lee Peltier is suspended and we haven’t seen Paddy McNair train yet. 

“But the good news is we have Onel Hernandez back training, and the lads we do have available have been great. 

“They’ve trained hard over the past couple of weeks, I wanted them to have a good preparation and I’ve been really impressed with the intensity and quality.” 

Further up the pitch, the Boro boss gave updates on his returning players from the international break with Paddy McNair, James Lea-Siliki and Andraz Sporar all away with their respective countries.

Warnoced added: “I haven’t seen Paddy McNair yet, hopefully he is alright and Onel Hernandez trained yesterday and we’ve got our fingers crossed with him.

“He (James Lea-Siliki) only trained yesterday and it wasn’t intense. We worked on other things yesterday.

“When we know what the situation is, we had to look at one or two other players in different areas so we had to do a bit more intense training yesterday. So I’ve not had a good look at him but they’ve all come back fit.

“Andraz (Sporar), he’s got a sore achilles which he’s had since he came really so he didn’t train yesterday but I’m sure he’ll be okay to train today. We’ll just have to look after him with his achilles."