PADDY McNair says he's relaxed about his Middlesbrough contract situation and is happy to focus on his football until the end of the season before holding talks over his future.

McNair's current Boro deal is due to expire at the end of the season but the Northern Ireland international, who has spent six years at the Riverside, insists he's calm about the situation despite the uncertainty over his future.

“It’s something I’m quite relaxed about," he told BBC Tees.

"We’ll discuss it at the end of the season because I don’t think there is any rush with it. I’m relaxed about it and at the end of the season we’ll have that conversation.”

McNair has played more than 200 games for Boro and remains a key figure for Michael Carrick's side.

This season has been something of a frustrating one for the 28-year-old, who missed a spell through injury over Christmas and then struggled to get back into the side.

But he's played five of Boro's last six games and was superb in the victory over Birmingham City on Tuesday night.

READ MORE:

He said: “Over the Christmas period and New Year it was tough. I had a back injury which is something I’ve not had before. It was frustrating and it’s never nice missing games, especially over the Christmas period because there is a lot of them to miss.

"It wasn’t ideal but I’m feeling good and since I’ve come back in we’ve won the majority of the games and hopefully we can continue that."

The win over Birmingham lifted Boro to within just five points of the Championship's play-off places. Less than a fortnight ago, Boro were nervously looking over their shoulder and were just six points above the relegation zone.

“That’s the Championship," said McNair.

"You’re never too far from the bottom and you’re never too far from the top. We just need to take one game at a time and I think a couple of the teams don’t play Saturday either, so if we can close the gap even more than even better. We have to just concentrate on ourselves, win as many games as we can and see where that takes us."

Reflecting on the hard-fought Birmingham win, Carrick said: “It was tough. It’s never easy coming here on a tight pitch where their fans feel on top of you. It was a bit of a scrappy game but I thought first half we were really good.

"We maybe could have been more than one up at the break. Second half, I thought we had to see the game out and we did that really well. You know when you come here, they’re going to put pressure on you and the fans will get behind them, they’ll pump balls into the box. But I can’t really think of them having a shot on target really. I thought we did well in that regard."