Swansea City v Middlesbrough FC: Michael Carrick refusing to fall back on well-worn three-game-week excuse

But the former England midfielder is not one to complain and has no concerns about a typical Championship week playing Saturday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Three-game weeks are often rolled out as excuses by managers, particularly those with smaller squads, as Boro's has become with injuries. After three consecutive defeats and four in the last five games, Carrick could be forgiven for playing that card.

"It is what it is," he said instead.

"The way the boys lives their lives and look after and condition themselves when we're playing games as we are, I think it's certainly do-able as long as we do the right things between games. The boys are used to it.

"We'd prefer to have a full squad to choose from to mix it around and be flexible from game to game but the lads are fine playing every three days.

"It’s the difficulty in some ways in talking so much about the injured players. There can be a risk of it sounding like, ‘The boys are injured so it is a weakened team’. It’s certainly not a weakened team or weaker individuals.

"The bigger issue for us is the chopping and changing that it forces and I think that has affected us in terms of being able to find our rhythm and our connections. But individually, we’re good and collectively as a team, we’re good."

The hope is that Riley McGree will soon be back in training and Hayden Hackney back in the side, but neither is ready to feature in south Wales.

Forward Marcus Forss "is a little bit further behind" in Carrick's words, whilst Boro are trying to manage Josh Coburn's ongoing groin problem.