The Christmas fixture schedule is often taxing and demanding but Michael Carrick doesn't see the festive spell as any different to a normal week in the Championship.

Middlesbrough host Wigan on Boxing Day before trips to Blackburn next Thursday, December 29 and Birmingham on Monday, January 2.

That, as Carrick points out, is like any normal Championship week with a midweek fixture, so the head coach has no special plans for the coming games.

That doesn't necessarily mean he'll keep the same team throughout but nor does it mean that Carrick thinks he needs to carefully juggle his squad through the spell.

READ MORE:

“The festive period isn’t too bad this year," said Carrick, who has kept the same starting XI for the last six Championship games.

"When we first came in we had five games in that initial period which was basically a Tuesday-Saturday, Tuesday-Saturday run. So I don’t see any big fuss of it being that busy. It’s just different days with the games being Monday-Thursday-Monday so there is the usual time to recover.

"We’ll pick the team and we might make changes, I’m not saying we won’t necessarily, but I don’t see it as a busy schedule really, it’s just normal. The way we look at it, it’s just normal.

"You have a game, and then three or four days later you have another. In whatever day that falls, that’s just how we plan around it and work. If we need to make changes or think we should for whatever reason, we will make changes."

Matt Crooks missed the Burnley trip last time out and was being assessed this week ahead of the Wigan game.

Carrick said: “We’re in pretty good shape. Everybody who has been fit is fit and we’ll see how it goes on Boxing Day.”