MICHAEL CARRICK is confident Middlesbrough’s squad will be stronger come the end of January – but says the improvement will not necessarily be a result of the club’s business in the transfer window.

The January window is now open, with Boro having been linked with potential moves for a defender and forward.

The club are without a host of senior players because of either injury or international call-ups, with 12 members of the first-team squad having been unavailable for yesterday’s 3-1 home defeat to Coventry City.

Three of those absentees – Hayden Hackney, Matt Crooks and Emmanuel Latte Lath – are due to return to training this week, and Carrick feels the return of some key members of the current squad will be more important than anything Boro do in the transfer market this month.

The Boro boss said: “In terms of recruitment and the January window, we’ll hopefully be getting more players back, so we’ll look stronger.

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“It’s not really about a short-term fix. If anything, we could probably have done with the short-term fix six weeks ago, but the window obviously wasn’t open then.

“As I’ve been saying all along, the timing of the window is probably that it’ll be open when we start getting a few more back in January.”

Carrick named a number of youngsters on his bench yesterday, with Calum Kavanagh coming on as a late substitute and Bryant Bilongo, Law McCabe, AJ Bridge and Daniel Nkrumah unused replacements.

He said: “I really enjoy having the young players involved, and I think it’s fabulous for them. It’s great experience for them.

“But I’m sure, in terms of senior players, we’ll look stronger and have more numbers by the end of January.”