THE activity on Michael Carrick's phone is a tell-tale sign of Middlesbrough's success in recent weeks, for the Boro head coach has been inundated with support and praise for the job he's doing on Teesside.

By his own admission, the Manchester United head coach is "hopeless" on his phone, so not all friends, relatives, former teammates and coaches have received a reply - but Carrick appreciates all the well-wishes, and he's particularly grateful for the messages after "bumps in the road"

Not that there's been many. Since the resumption of Championship action after the World Cup, Boro have won nine of 11 Championship games, climbing to third and within seven points of the automatic promotion places.

And Carrick's work is not going unnoticed. He's received plenty of plaudits in his four months on Teesside, and his former England teammate John Terry yesterday took to Twitter to praise the "great job" he's done so far.

"The support has been fantastic and that tends to be the case - when you’re doing well you do get a lot of messages," said Carrick.

"Part of it is enjoying it and recognising things are going alright, but understanding that really, it’s about what's next and trying achieve something bigger than what we’ve already achieved. That drives us on.

"I've had messages from friends, family, people who I know or have come across over the years. Sometimes you get ones out of the blue who you maybe haven’t heard from or spoken to for a while.

"That’s the beauty of football, you come across so many people at different times of your career. Sometimes you can be really close and then you move on and they drift away. That’s the industry in a way.

"But you never lose touch and it is nice to keep in contact with them and receive messages when things are going well, sometimes when it’s not. Often the messages that come after a defeat or a little bump in the road are the ones that mean a little bit more. Hopefully there won’t be too many of them though."

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QPR are Boro's next Championship obstacle. Rangers head for the Riverside on a dismal run. They're bottom of the form table and have won just once since Neil Critchley took charge, but Carrick is taking nothing for granted.

He said: "It's a dangerous game, it really is. These types of games. There's no hiding from the fact they've had a tough run of results but for me that makes them very dangerous when they have really good individuals that at any moment can come alive and hurt you.

"Coupled with the team and the organisation, it doesn't take much to flip and it's up to us to be right at it and prepared. We'll be ready physically and mentally to start from scratch again and build our performance. When a team is in that position, it does make them very dangerous."