MICHAEL Carrick was unsurprisingly reluctant to talk about Neto Borges after Middlesbrough's 2-2 draw with Portsmouth, with Boro's head coach reiterating that he doesn't like to discuss targets until deals are completed.

Boro are closing in on the permanent signing of the Brazilian left-back who plays for Clermont and talks are progressing well but a deal hasn't been finalised just yet and until it is Carrick didn't have much to say on the matter.

"Until anyone is our player, I don’t think it’s right to speak about anything like that," he said.

"If there is anything, we’ll let you know.”

Boro are pushing to make Borges their sixth and most likely last senior summer signing, with strengthening at left-back having become a priority after Alex Bangura suffered a serious injury in pre-season.

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Boro snatched a point against Portsmouth thanks to substitute Tommy Conway's last minute penalty, which was the home side's 29th shot on goal in what was a dominant display.

A draw was the least Boro deserved despite the fact they once again made life difficult for themselves after another defensive mistake. After Isaiah Jones' error at Derby last week, Portsmouth and striker Christian Saydee were gifted their second goal at the Riverside after a mix-up between Seny Dieng and Matt Clarke.

That came after Clarke had cancelled out Saydee's early opener. But Boro were dominant after the break and forced the leveller after Jones was fouled inside the box.

Carrick said: “I thought there were a lot of good things in the game for us. I thought we were okay - decent enough - last week, but I thought we were very good at times today.

"We're just giving ourselves a lot to do with the errors. For me, I’m judging it over a period of time through the game - how it looks, what we’re trying to do, success we’re getting from it - an individual error is the other side of that.

"There's been two in two weeks but take that out, over the three games, we haven’t given much away at all, we’ve had a lot of shots, a lot of good play in and around the box and I thought today particularly was some of our best play in that area against a side who had a lot to hold on to.

"There were a lot of positives really overall, but certainly mixed feelings. The negatives are one-offs. It’s not like there is a lot going wrong within the whole performance, so I suppose we can take that as a real positive too."

Carrick admits his side have to cut-out the individual errors but isn't overly concerned.

He said: “It comes down to concentration, focus and staying in the moment and managing that. Largely the boys are doing a lot of good things. The individual errors we’ll have to put to bed and deal with it and move on. But we’ll certainly dwell on the positives a lot more and the performance generally, because I thought there was a lot of good things there."