MIDDLESBROUGH hope to have Riley McGree back in training "pretty soon" in what would be a major festive boost for Michael Carrick, but the head coach has again stressed the need for patience with the influential midfielder.

McGree hasn't played for Boro since the win over Cardiff in early October, with the Australian international battling a problematic plantar fascia issue. But the 25-year-old has made good progress in recent weeks and is now closing in on a return to training.

Marcus Forss is a bit further behind and Carrick hasn't yet set an expected return date for the Finnish forward, with the boss also having to carefully monitor Josh Coburn, who was missing from the squad for Wednesday night's defeat to Hull City due to a niggling groin problem.

Despite losing four of the last five games, Carrick again reiterated his belief in the players who are currently fit and in the squad - though it goes without saying it would be a major boost to have a key man like McGree back involved.

“Riley is a little bit further on and is going to start training with us pretty soon," said Carrick, who confirmed Boro suffered no fresh injury concerns against Hull and hopes to soon have Hayden Hackney back in his team.

"We are also conscious of the fact he’s been out for a period of time. It’s finding the right balance. Marcus is a little bit further behind. He’ll be a little bit longer than Riley.

"Of course, we’d love all of them back as soon as possible, but in reality, it’s a long season and we have to think about that longer period of time. We want to get them back but it has to be when they are ready to come back so there are hopefully no repercussions.

"So as much as we’re doing absolutely everything we possibly can to get them back, we’ve got to be sensible on that and balanced in our views on that. I’m hopeful we will get one or two back in the next week or two, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

After 10 successive league starts, Coburn dropped to the bench for four straight games before being left out of the squad in midweek.

Carrick explained: “Josh has been feeling it for a little bit over a period of time. It’s another one where we’ve got a duty with a younger player who has played a lot of football. We’ve got to be careful and look after him. He’s had a little issue with his groin and his pelvis. So we have to manage that and hopefully we get him back soon."

READ MORE:

Carrick is looking forward to having some extra options to choose from but insists he has no complaints whatsoever with the way the fit and available players have performed, despite the poor run of recent results.

He said: “It would be nice to have them back, of course, because they’re good players. But listen, the boys that are in the squad are good players as well.

"I keep saying that because it’s the difficulty in some ways in talking so much about the injured players. There can be a risk of it sounding like, ‘the boys are injured so it is a weakened team’. But for me, it’s certainly not a weakened team or weaker individuals.

"For me, the bigger issue for us is the chopping and changing that it forces and I think that has affected us in terms of being able to find our rhythm and our connections. But individually, we’re good and collectively as a team, we’re good. Options throughout the squad and variety are of course limited a little bit right now, but we’ll certainly make the best of what we’ve got."