MICHAEL Carrick told his devastated Middlesbrough players that he wants them to be proud of what they've achieved this season.

And although the head coach knows his squad will be broken up this summer, with loan players returning to their parent clubs, he wants those who are still at Boro at the start of pre-season to use this term's experiences - good and bad - as a springboard to go one better and win promotion next year.

Carrick described his Boro squad as a "special group" and said they must accept and deal with Wednesday night's devastation in a bid to come back stronger next term.

“I don’t really want to think about the future too much now, we’ve just gone out," he said.

"As much as we want to come back stronger, we’ve got to accept and deal with what’s happened tonight first and foremost. It’s a special group. I said to them in there, hopefully in years to come they’ll look back with pride at what they’ve done together."

Boro's squad will inevitably have a different look to it when they report back for the start of pre-season, with six loanees set to return to their parent clubs. Aaron Ramsey and Cameron Archer will head back to Aston Villa, Zack Steffen to Manchester City and Ryan Giles to Wolves. Alex Mowatt will go back to West Brom and Rodrigo Muniz to Fulham.

It's too early at this stage to know whether there's any realistic possibility of any of the loanees returning next season.

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Carrick said: "Unfortunately, with football, things change, and this will be the last time as a group they’re all together.

"We’ll come in tomorrow, and hopefully they’ll look back in years to come and think it was great to be a part of.

"It’s a fantastic group of people, and we’ll have good memories of what we’ve been through. When we start pre-season with the ones that are here, we’ll look to use this as a base and a foundation for what’s next.

"We can get our heads around that, it’s about accepting and dealing with what we’ve just gone through.”