MICHAEL Carrick has welcomed the end of a "challenging" spell for Middlesbrough - and says his confident players are ready to kick-on in the play-offs.

Boro had next to nothing on the line for the final three games of the Championship campaign after wrapping up their place in the play-offs with a couple of weeks to spare, ending the regular season with 1-1 draw against Coventry City on Monday.

As much as Carrick has talked up the importance of the last three games, he admits it's been tough for Boro with nothing at stake. But he says his players will go into the play-off semi-final double header against Coventry still full of confidence.

“It’s been a challenging couple of weeks," said Boro's head coach.

"We’ve really worked hard to make sure that we were preparing for games the right way and trying to keep our edge in terms of results matter and performances matter.

"But there is no hiding from the fact we knew our fate a couple of weeks back and where we’d be. So credit to the boys for how they’ve played even if we haven’t had the results.

"As I’ve said, I think the performances have been pretty good and now we are where we are. We can take a lot of confidence still from recent performances as we spoke about during the game. I think the boys showed the more the game went on that the confidence is definitely still there."

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Coventry secured their place in the play-offs with the point they picked up at the Riverside. Gustavo Hamer put Mark Robins' side in front in the first half before Cameron Archer's leveller on the stroke of half-time.

Carrick said: “I thought we weren’t quite at our top level at the start. That’s probably because we’re so used to the boys doing so well.

"I thought it was a little bit off to begin with, not massively, but just enough that the boys were getting a little bit frustrated. But the longer the game went I thought we hit a better level and I’m generally quite pleased from what we got from the day overall.

"We pushed for the win, and wanted to win it - that goes without saying. But overall, a good performance, pretty solid, everyone coming through it fit and well with a good work out for some who needed it. So pretty positive all round really."