MIDDLESBROUGH return to Coventry City’s CBS Arena for the first time since May’s play-off semi-final this lunchtime – but Michael Carrick insists he will not be thinking about last season’s heartbreaking near miss.

Boro looked to be in the box seat when they secured a goalless draw in the opening leg of their semi-final at Coventry’s home ground, but things went awry in the return leg at the Riverside when Gustavo Hamer’s second-half strike proved decisive.

Coventry went on to lose the play-off final at Wembley to Luton Town, meaning, like Boro, they remain in the Championship for the current campaign.

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Today’s game provides Carrick’s side with an early opportunity to extract some revenge for the play-offs, but the Boro head coach has not brought up last season’s disappointment when addressing his players this week.

“What’s done is done,” said Carrick. “You can’t retrieve it. They got to Wembley and unfortunately, for themselves, didn’t quite get over the line.

“You can’t go back in time. What we can do is try to learn from the game, look at it, and think about what we could have done better.

“We’re obviously playing against them, but there’s a few different players and they’ve maybe tweaked their system. Both teams are similar though, with the same managers, and we’ll go head-to-head again and look forward to the challenge.”

Coventry have had a disappointing start to the current campaign, following an opening-weekend league defeat to Leicester City with a surprise Carabao Cup exit at the hands of League Two AFC Wimbledon.

Last season’s star player, Viktor Gyokeres, has left for Sporting, replaced by former Sunderland loanee Ellis Simms, but Coventry have retained the likes of Hamer, Matt Godden and Ben Sheaf as well as adding midfielder Jay Dasilva, and Carrick fully expects them to be challenging for promotion again this season.

“Our games against them at the end of last season were all really close together,” he said. “In the end, the games were pretty similar, pretty tight, with not loads of chances at either end.

“They’re so well organised and defend very well, as well as having a threat on the break. They still do that, but it looks like they’ve added to their game as well. It will be a good game and a good challenge for us.”

While Carrick does not want to dwell on last season, he feels his players will have benefited from the experience of making the play-offs, even if they eventually came up short.

“I’m sure they’ve learned a lot,” he said. “It feels as though I’ve been here an awfully long time, but actually this is my first full season. As a group, we’ll definitely be better for sharing the experience that we all went through last year. We’ve just got to build on that now.”

Carrick must decide whether to start with Jonny Howson this afternoon, with the midfielder having come off the bench in both the season-opening league defeat against Millwall and the midweek Carabao Cup win at Huddersfield.

The 35-year-old did not feature in pre-season because of an injury issue, but has been in full training for the last week-and-a-half. Nevertheless, Carrick could decide it is too soon to thrust him back into the starting side, in which case he will retain last weekend’s midfield pairing of Hayden Hackney and Dan Barlaser.

“It’s nice to have Jonny back, but we’ve had to be patient with him as well and not push him or over-push him,” said Carrick. “That’s the balancing act, but we’re fortunate that we’ve got fantastic midfielders to choose from so we don’t have to rush Jonny back, even though he looked really good in both games when he came on.”

Middlesbrough (probable, 4-2-3-1): Dieng; McNair, Fry, Lenihan, Coulson; Hackney, Barlser; Forss, Crooks, McGree; Rogers.