HIS side might already have beaten Huddersfield Town this season, but Michael Carrick does not expect this month’s Carabao Cup success at the John Smith’s Stadium to have too much of a bearing on today’s Championship game at the Riverside.

Boro set up a League Cup second-round meeting with Bolton when they won in West Yorkshire a week-and-a-half ago, with the Teessiders running out 3-2 winners after their opponents were reduced to ten men in the first half.

Both sides made a host of changes for the game, so while Carrick is not expecting any stylistic surprises from the Terriers this afternoon, he is not reading too much into their recent meeting.

“I think every game is different,” said the Boro boss, who has seen his side lose to Millwall and Coventry in their opening two league games. “The styles of the two teams will probably be fairly similar, but the personnel will be different so it’s a different game.

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“We know the challenge they pose and the threat they certainly have – they’ve shown that time and time again over recent times. They certainly did it against us last season. We’re well aware of how good a team they are, and we’re well aware of what we need to do to be at our best. We’re looking forward to it.”

Huddersfield inflicted one of Carrick’s heaviest defeats as Boro boss when they won 4-2 in the league in April, with their high-intensity, physical style troubling the Teessiders.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for them as a team, in terms of how they perform and how effective they are,” said Carrick. “They’ve got a style of play, we’ve got a style of play, and at the end of the day, it’s about the end product you get and how efficient and effective you can be. He’s obviously proved over a long period of time how smart he is, and how he knows the game and how to get results.”

Carrick’s main selection decision ahead of today’s game revolves around Lukas Engel and Emmanuel Latte Lath, who were both signed earlier this week. The pair have had limited training time with their new team-mates, but Engel should be match fit after starting the Danish season with Silkeborg while Latte Lath was involved in the whole of pre-season with Atalanta.

“We’re still making a call on the new boys,” said Carrick. “It’s important they bed into the group and find their feet, so we’ll make a call on that one. They haven’t trained a great deal with us so far, so we’ll have to weigh that up.”

Middlesbrough (probable, 4-2-3-1): Dieng; McNair, Fry, Lenihan, Engel; Howson, Hackney; Jones, Rogers, McGree; Latte Lath.