KEY Middlesbrough duo Riley McGree and Rav van den Berg have been forced to withdraw from their national squads due to injury.
McGree was due to link up with the Australia squad for their games against England at Wembley on Friday and New Zealand next week, while van den Berg was scheduled to join the Holland Under-21 squad.
But both players have been forced to pull out because of injuries that ruled them out of Boro's win at Sunderland on Saturday.
McGree suffered a foot injury just before he was substituted in last week's win over Cardiff City. Van den Berg has been nursing a hamstring issue for the last couple of weeks and felt a muscle injury in the warm-up at the Stadium of Light, forcing Michael Carrick into a late change to his team.
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Carrick said: “Riley felt his foot literally 30 seconds before we were going to bring him off against Cardiff. It was really bad luck.
"He felt a pain in the bottom of his foot which is an issue that’s not easy to get on top of.
"Rav went down late in the warm-up at Sunderland so Tommy came in and I couldn't have asked more from him. We’ll have to see how Rav is over the next week or so."
The pair will now stay at Rockliffe for treatment. It's not clear at this stage when Boro expect them to be ready to return.
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