MICHAEL Carrick and his Middlesbrough coaching team have done "a lot of thinking" to try and get to the bottom of the current injury crisis and attempt to prevent any further setbacks in the coming weeks.

Boro's squad has been decimated by injury blows in recent months, with as many as 14 senior players at risk of missing Saturday's game against West Brom.

Some of the injuries have been caused by impact, which is often just a case of misfortune, but Carrick admits recent setbacks, particularly muscle problems and pulls, may well be a result of his stretched squad having to play through fatigue.

"There might be a fair case for that," said the head coach, who had five more players added to his list of injury concerns in midweek.

"We’ve done a lot of thinking and discussing how to avoid this moving forward. It’s a little bit of circumstance, some of the early ones are impact injuries and it’s very difficult to do too much about them.

"Then we’ve had games and the boys are pushing and giving everything so there’s the element of fatigue. Not so much tiredness because the boys have performed well and looked fresh but there is a certain point you get to. We have to manage it."

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In an attempt to lessen the load on his players, Carrick and his coaching team have tweaked training, in part forced by the schedule. The focus in the light sessions at Rockliffe since Tuesday's win at Port Vale has been recovery.

The head coach said: “I think it’s the nature of the season and the flow of it anyway. You get time to train a lot more at times, and other times not so much because of the schedule. Obviously then you start to factor in what options you have available and those who are, what they need.

"Sometimes the ones who haven’t been involved need more training to be ready, so there’s the balance with that. Last season we didn’t really have that many midweek games really because they seemed to come in a cluster before I came in.

"There was a lot of free weeks to train last year, which allowed for a lot more training. We haven’t got anywhere near as much training in this year, for various reasons. The games mainly. There’s the constant balance of trying to get the boys in the right shape and the right frame of mind."

Carrick continued: “We’re driven by data to a certain point. There’s a balance. It certainly doesn’t drive how we train. There are different ways of working and I know some coaches and managers are data driven. I’m not particularly driven by data, but it’s something that we will always use to gauge how things are going."

Ahead of the visit of West Brom tomorrow, there is some light at the end of the tunnel on the injury front. Carrick revealed on Thursday that both Riley McGree and Josh Coburn could return to the squad, while the injury Seny Dieng suffered at Swansea last week isn't serious.

Hayden Hackney is also expected to be fit to return in the next fortnight or so.

What's not clear is whether any of the players who picked up injuries in the midweek cup win at Port Vale will be fit to feature tomorrow.

Carrick said: “We’re still giving the boys as long as possible to recover.

“Over this period because of the injuries and a couple of suspensions, training has been quite light and to a minimum and the focus has been on recovery and keeping everyone maintained and ticking over. We’ll give the boys as long as we can to be ready for Saturday. We’re still assessing that list as it goes on.”