2 lessons Michael Carrick will have learned from West Brom 0-1 Middlesbrough | OneFootball

Boro put in a highly impressive performance at The Hawthorns on Tuesday night, and Carrick will surely have learnt a lot about his side from it.

Middlesbrough made it back-to-back wins in the Championship on Tuesday night, with a highly impressive 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns.

Michael Carrick's side entered the game off the back of a 2-0 home win over Stoke City last weekend, but a midweek trip to the league leaders posed a huge challenge for his Boro side.

But after a night of stout defensive work kept Carlos Corberan's Baggies side at arms length, Hayden Hackney made it two goals in as many games with a lovely side-footed finish into the far corner on 73 minutes.

Those three points pushed Middlesbrough into sixth-place in the Championship, as they look to continue their recent turnaround in performances and results on Saturday, as they hit the road once again to take on Watford.

Carrick will no doubt have learned a lot about his team on Tuesday night, but what two main things will he have picked up from Boro's triumph over Albion?

Boro look far more balanced with Doak and McGree

Through the opening few fixtures of Middlesbrough's 2024/25 season, Carrick was fairly limited in regard to who he could task with the roles of operating on Boro's right and left flanks.

Riley McGree picked up an injury setback just one game into the campaign and didn't return to the pitch until Middlesbrough's win over Stoke last weekend, and Ben Doak only became a Boro player on transfer deadline day.

Both of these factors forced Carrick to ask Finn Azaz to play out wide on numerous occasions, a role which he can perform, but has shown to be notably less effective than when he's in his preferred number 10 position.

With summer signing Micah Hamilton still being very new to senior football, and with Marcus Forss making his return to a matchday squad at The Hawthorns after not being seen since March, Isaiah Jones has been given every opportunity to play through his early season poor form.

Unfortunately, his performance levels haven't been at the standard Carrick and Boro need them to be. As such, Doak has been slowly introduced into the team over the past few games, with increasingly bigger cameos.

But after bagging his first goal for the club against Stoke, and following that up with another electric performance against West Brom, he looks like a player who is going to be very hard for any Boro right-winger to win the starting role from moving forward.

Doak's direct, attacking-minded nature paired with his willingness to make runs in behind the defence, provides Boro with a deadly out ball on the transition.

Combine that with McGree's ability to orchestrate attacking moves down his flank due to him being left-footed, Middlesbrough instantly looked a more well-balanced, and tough team to defend against, as the players on the pitch looked like they were all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Having Doak and McGree on the wings has also allowed Azaz to slot back into his most effective position in the centre of the pitch, and it's this attacking trio that will surely be the structure of Middlesbrough's attack going forward.

Boro may need to improve at stopping crosses

Middlesbrough looked a very well-organised defensive unit on Tuesday night, and largely prevented West Brom from passing through their lines and carving out chances through the middle of the pitch.

The Baggies' biggest threat came from their crosses into the box, as Darnell Furlong whipped in a number of dangerous crosses into the Boro penalty area in the first half, before Albion's attacking players all took turns to throw balls into the area in the second half.

For the most part, Boro dealt with them very well. Multiple Middlesbrough players all found themselves making vital clearances, but almost saw their hard work undone by Josh Maja late in the game, but the Championship's top scorer couldn't direct his effort goalwards from just a few yards out.

West Brom could've and perhaps should've gotten something out of the game with the volume of crosses they delivered into Middlesbrough's box, and on another night, they likely would've.

There were times when the likes of Alex Mowatt were afforded too much time to deliver crosses into the danger area with his excellent left-foot, and so driving home the importance of closing down faster and stopping those deliveries to his players will surely be a lesson learned by Carrick on Tuesday night.

If that compact defensive performance is a glimpse of what we can expect to see from Middlesbrough moving forward, then putting crosses into the box may well become the most likely avenue to goals for their opposition this season, and so the importance of stopping them could well be vital for Boro.