RAY Parlour is backing Mark Viduka to fire Middlesbrough into the last four of the FA Cup as the Teessiders look to gain more than a measure of revenge against Charlton on Thursday night.

Boro went down 2-1 to the Addicks when the sides met in the Premiership this month.

Viduka scored a peach of a goal to bring the sides level at 1-1, lifting the ball over the defence with an audacious overhead flick before running on and firing an unstoppable 25-yard shot into the back of the net.

It was a goal fit to win any match, but it failed to spur Steve McClaren's men on to victory.

However, after netting in the weekend defeat to Blackburn, Viduka, if picked, will be confident of adding to his tally.

Midfielder Parlour certainly believes he can keep Boro's two-pronged cup assault on course.

"It was hard for Mark up front on his own in the league but I thought we supported him well for spells against both Charlton and Blackburn," said Parlour.

"He's such a great player that he can get a goal out of nothing and that's exactly what he did against Charlton."

With McClaren rotating his three front men on a regular basis there is no guarantee that Viduka will start at the Valley, Aiyegbeni Yakubu and Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink proving equally potent recently.

"The problem Mark and the other forwards have is that the three strikers we have are all playing well," said Parlour.

"It makes it hard for the manager but it's a good thing. You'd rather have all your strikers in form than none of them playing well.

"But it brings its problems and it's all about what decisions the manager makes with the strikers."

Parlour says Boro are determined to put right what went wrong against this week's opponents in their most recent encounter.

"We dominated the game down there in the first half. They had two shots in the second half and scored twice," he said.

"We gave away silly goals through a lack of concentration. It was a good performance but the result didn't go our way. I'm sure we can go back there in the FA Cup with a lot of confidence.

"The team will be stronger and we'll have every chance. We rested a lot of players for the league match and still showed we could match them.

"We'll have our strongest side out for the FA Cup, we'll give them a good game and we're confident we can go through."

Meanwhile, centre back Chris Riggott is battling to be fit for the trip to London.

The 25-year-old made way at half-time on Saturday and is still waiting to find out the extent of the problem.

"It was very sore on Saturday," he said. "I felt it five or ten minutes into the game but at half-time I couldn't carry on.

"Hopefully, it's not too bad though. There was no chance of me coming back out for the second half, but hopefully there's not too much damage been done."

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