ON a night when Middlesbrough finally turned a corner, Michael Carrick felt the return of skipper Jonny Howson was one of the biggest positives to emerge from his side’s 3-1 win over Norwich City.

Having suffered a knee injury during the defeat to Preston, Howson was forced to sit out three matches as Boro tumbled towards the relegation zone.

It was initially feared he could be facing a long-term injury lay-off, but a consultation with a specialist in London allayed those worries and the midfielder was able to step up his training programme at the start of this week.

He returned to the starting side last night, and was at the heart of the action as he was involved in the incident that resulted in Norwich midfielder Borja Sainz being dismissed in the first half.

“He hasn’t trained much, Jonny,” said Carrick. “He’s only trained for a couple of days, but it was good to have him back and it obviously gives us different options along with Lewis (O’Brien) and Dan (Barlaser) in midfield.

“We’re trying to get Hayden (Hackney) back too, but it was good to have Jonny back. It’ll be a busy week coming up, with a Saturday fixture straight away (against QPR at Loftus Road), so we’ll assess who’s fresh and ready, and look forward to that.”

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Carrick reserved special post-match praise for Lukas Engel, whose attacking forays at left wing-back played a major role in Boro’s success.

“It’s part of the game now that you’ve got to be adaptable,” he said. “Full-backs or wing-backs need to be wingers, need to be full-backs and need to be wing-backs. A lot depends on the personnel who you’re playing with. But Lukas, and Luke (Thomas) too, can both do both of those roles.

“Lukas played against Chelsea with Alex Bangura in front of him, so it proves he can play the deeper position as well. It’s good to be adaptable, but certainly today was a good one for him, making the goal and scoring the third. It was good to see Lukas getting up there.”