GIVEN that Take That confirmed a date at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium as part of next year’s ‘This Life’ tour last week, perhaps it was only fitting that Michael Carrick spent the build-up to Saturday’s much-needed win over Southampton preaching the need for patience after his side’s difficult start to the season.

And while the weekend win over the Saints might not quite have been Boro’s greatest day, Carrick will no doubt be hoping that everything changes in the wake of his side’s first league success, ensuring his side’s winning form is back for good.

“I think there’s a natural lift for everyone,” said the Boro boss, after goals from Riley McGree and Jonny Howson enabled his side to overturn an early deficit and lift themselves off the foot of the Championship table. “That’s in terms of getting the win, but probably more importantly in terms of how we achieved it.

“The performance level and the standard of the play was really good. It wasn’t like we scrapped and had to grind it out, it was more of an all-round good performance, which gives you the extra bit of confidence to know that it’s in there. We’ve got to keep doing it again and again, but I thought it was the whole package really. It was what we were after.”

While results might not have gone Boro’s way in the opening two months of the season, Carrick insists his belief in his players never wavered.

He remained convinced things would turn, hence his positivity in his press briefings and insistence that things were nowhere near as bad as the league table was suggesting, but he also concedes there was always going to come a point where his words would cease to mean much if results on the pitch did not improve.

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To that end, Saturday’s victory was an important moment, changing the external narrative ahead of tomorrow’s Carabao Cup third-round game at Bradford City, but also providing some internal affirmation that what he and his players were seeing on the training ground was not illusory.

“The boys have been great, and I’ve not doubted them one bit,” insisted Carrick. “Like, literally, not even for one second. I don’t think they’ve doubted themselves either.

“Obviously, there are times when things don’t come as easy, and it can hit your confidence a little bit which means things don’t come as naturally and as easy as you’d like them to, but I haven’t had, or seen from any of the players, serious doubt into what we’re doing.

“For whatever reason, it hasn’t quite clicked in terms of peak performance, but the attitude and the effort has always been there. They’ve tried everything we’ve asked, and they’ve been all in.

“But of course, the win helps give everybody a lift. Although, truthfully, as I said after the game, even if we hadn’t won in the end, watching that game, I’d seen more than enough to know there were no major concerns.”

Carrick also maintains that he has seen more than enough to be convinced that he does not have to dismantle everything he was doing last season just because he is now presiding over a different squad.

Stylistically, the Boro boss will not be veering away from the possession-heavy style he was so keen to implement last term, and in terms of tactics and formations, he does not see a need to make major alterations.

Carrick insists he does not get too hung up on his side’s formation, arguing they have a different shape anyway depending on whether they are in or out of possession, but while there have been suggestions that a switch to a back five could be helpful to the current team, such a move does not currently appear to be on the cards.

“We’ve got a way of playing to an extent, but that’s adaptable depending on who’s playing in certain positions,” said Carrick. “I’m not massive on formations, as we’ve discussed before. It’s more about looking at certain spaces that we can use and fill at certain times.

“I don’t think you can put numbers on formations anymore because it depends where the ball is on the pitch at certain moments and that dictates the space you fill. That’s how I see it really – what spaces we want to attack and makes us most dangerous.

“That’s what it boils down to, and certain boys have particular attributes that make them receivers and dribblers, some boys are a little bit more explosive and dynamic, some are more of a physical threat. There is  style in terms of, we like having the ball and controlling the game and we look to play certain passes and attack in certain ways, and that’s not going to change."