Middlesbrough: Michael Carrick hits back at criticism of Ipswich and Newcastle target | OneFootball

Middlesbrough's boss, Michael Carrick, has defended goalkeeper Seny Dieng after a mistake in his side's 2-2 draw with Hull City.

Boro's play-off hopes took a significant dent on Wednesday night after a draw against Hull, who are also dreaming of a spot in the top six.

Carrick's side took an early lead through the high-flying Emmanuel Latte Lath, who has now scored six goals in his last eight matches for the club.

The Tigers levelled the score just before the half-an-hour mark directly from an attempted cross from star winger, Jaden Philogene, and they ended up going into the break one-up after Jean Michael Seri pounced on a loss of possession by Middlesbrough.

The visitors were able to square the game up again through a well-worked counter-attack that ended in January signing Finn Azaz finding the back of the net, and 2-2 was what the score remained for the final 20+ minutes.

The result means that both teams are six points off the play-off places.

Despite making a good save not long before Philogene's goal, Dieng received a lot of criticism from fans because of the second goal that his side conceded.

Boro losing the ball just outside the penalty area, and Seri took full advantage of it.

The Senegalese shot-stopper has been linked with a move away from the Riverside Stadium after just one season there, having arrived from Queens Park Rangers in the summer, as clubs like Newcastle United and Ipswich Town have reported interest in him, as per The Telegraph.

His manager defended him and said that his side can't move away from their principles.

The former Manchester United midfielder wants his side to build attacks from the back, and that one mistake, like the one against the Tigers, shouldn't stop them from doing something that he feels will benefit them overall.

He said, via the Northern Echo: "When is the right time to not do it? You get your success from it, so when do you decide we’re not going to do it now when that’s what we’re good at and what we get our success from.

"When you concede, it’s easy to say it’s a bad time to do it, we shouldn’t be doing it, or whatever. When we get the rewards, it’s fantastic football.

"I can’t fault the boys. All teams in this league who play in that way have conceded goals in that manner at times. Leicester have, Southampton have, Hull have. That’s not having a go at those teams.

"What we all feel is that we get more success in terms of building your style of play, in terms of gaining confidence in the game and being dangerous from back to front. We believe in it a lot.

"Yes, we got caught today, and if we didn’t we might have won the game. But that’s football. I think we scored the first goal from kind of playing out from the back, so I’ve got no problem with that."

The manager used an example of when going away from his style of play negatively effected one of their results. "There was one goal at Leicester - Vardy’s,"said Carrick. "We kick it long with five minutes to go and they win the header and he goes in one-on-one to score and you’re asking, ‘should we have played it out?’

"When a goal goes in, it’s easy to dissect it and say you should do it differently. But we believe in it and that it gives us a lot of good in the game.

"Yeah, we can do a little bit better, and we don’t want to concede goals from doing it. But if you don’t do it, when are you ever going to play your football? Everyone thinks of the problem and not the solution. We’re a little bit more positive than that."

Middlesbrough should stick to their guns when it comes to style of play

There's a reason why all of the top teams of today play high-possession, controlling football, and why many attacks start with the ball at the goalkeeper's feet, instead of hoof-ball where the person between the sticks lumps it up to the striker at every goal kick.

Using the keeper to build attacks gives teams a numerical advantage on the ball, and an always-open option, because nobody is going to man mark someone of Dieng's position on the pitch.

This style of playing the game gives the best teams control over games. It doesn't allow the opposition much joy when you get it right.

The key there is getting it right, and having the players with the ability and confidence to do it. Dieng does, and Middlesbrough should take full advantage of it while they have him, because it's going to give them the best chance to be up near the top end of the Championship.