MICHAEL CARRICK has expressed sympathy for Emmanuel Latte Lath as he prepares to make his latest comeback from injury, and backed the striker to make a significant impact in the final two-and-a-half months of the season.

Latte Lath returned to training this week after recovering from the foot injury sustained in the opening minutes of last month’s Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg win over Chelsea.

The Ivorian, who was a summer signing from Italian side Atalanta, has suffered a series of injury issues this season, restricting him to just ten Championship starts, and Carrick admits it has not been the season anyone was hoping for.

However, with Latte Lath set to be back in the squad for tomorrow’s home game with Plymouth Argyle, the Boro boss is hoping the 25-year-old can start making up for lost time in the final 14 matches of the campaign.

“Manu has been really unfortunate,” said Carrick. “I thought he started showing his top form just before he got injured the first time round, then he came back and felt something else quite quickly after that.

“It’s been a bit of a stop-start season for him, but we know what Manu can do. We’ll have to be a little bit patient with him this time around, in terms of getting him back up to speed, but hopefully he can have a big say between now and the end of the season, along with all the other boys. Hopefully, that can make that little bit of a difference for us.”

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With Latte Lath and Josh Coburn both absent, Carrick has repeatedly had to shuffle his forward line around this season.

Sam Greenwood and Sammy Silvera have filled the ‘number nine’ role in recent weeks, with Morgan Rogers also regularly playing as a central striker prior to his move to Aston Villa, and Carrick has been delighted with the way in which a number of his players have proved their attacking versatility this term.

“There’s different ways to play,” he said. “We all crave goals, we all want to score. It’s the thing we all get excited about, but I do feel that we’ve got a number of different ways to do it.

“The boys have shared it around pretty well. Of course, we want more. We’ve shown we’re capable of creating opportunities, and I thought the boys took their goals ever so well last weekend (at Leicester), and we created enough to have scored one or two more really.

“I don’t doubt that the boys are capable of scoring goals, but of course, we want as many options as possible to choose from, and then to be able to pick the best ones from that. I don’t doubt the boys though. I’m sure we can keep scoring goals.”