"Real inability" - Middlesbrough FC weakness outlined that Michael Carrick must address | OneFootball

It has been a familiar story at The Riverside for much of the 24/25 Championship campaign

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Middlesbrough head into the international break in fine form, having netted nine goals in their last two outings, with Michael Carrick’s side finally starting to click on a consistent basis.

After seeing off Queens Park Rangers 4-1 in midweek, Boro dispatched Luton Town 5-1 at the Riverside on Saturday, with Delano Burgzorg and Finn Azaz both netting braces in front of their own fans.

Those victories keep the Teessiders within touching distance of the leading pack with around a third of the season’s matches played, but despite that, there will be plenty in the north-east convinced the club should have more points on the board this season.

With that in mind, we spoke to Football League World’s Boro fan pundit Jasper Hudson about the lack of consistency within the side, which he claims is the biggest issue surrounding his side at this moment in time.

Middlesbrough’s inconsistency could cost them in the race for promotion

WIth the three points secured against the Hatters at the weekend, it marked just the second time that Carrick has overseen two consecutive wins in the 24/25 campaign, with the feat last achieved with successes against Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion at the end of September.

With the quality they have throughout the side, there is no question that Boro can turn it on when they need to - as a 1-0 victory over Sheffield United proved recently - but lapses in concentration and costly errors have seen them drop points at crucial times already this season.

Squandering a two-goal lead to Norwich City at the end of last month is one of the most recent examples, while the less said about the 3-0 defeat at home to Coventry City the following weekend the better.

There will already be cases where the Riverside faithful look back ruefully in the current campaign, leaving them fearful of a repeat of the previous year, where they missed out on the top six by four points.

That is exactly why Hudson pinpointed the fact when asked what is the main issue surrounding the club at this moment in time: “One of the biggest is just inconsistency on the pitch. We have a real inability to get results when we should get results,” he said.

“Looking at this season, there are so many games you can look back on and just know that we should have got a result, we played well enough and created chances, or were ahead and let it slip with a clumsy goal.

“There are plenty of examples of that, and that is the reason why we can’t compete at the top end of the table at the moment.

“In amongst all the good performances and all the wins, there are the bad performances where we don’t turn up, or we miss our chances and that is a real issue which has stopped us being in the play-offs last year.

“Hopefully, it won’t stop us this year. We have won two on the bounce now, we need to keep that going, we need to get a run going, and we need to start having consistent results.”

23/24 Championship near-miss will still haunt Middlesbrough

That inconsistency isn’t a new phenomenon for Carrick’s charges, with last season seeing plenty of chalk and cheese performances that would eventually cost them come the end of the season.

No win in the first eight league games of the season would end up coming back to haunt Boro during the run-in to the Championship campaign, having turned things around significantly to end up within touching distance of the play-offs.

A similar run of one win in seven league games between January and March also hampered their progress, while six-game winning streaks during other parts of the season would prove just how effective they could be going forward.

With that memory still fresh in their mind, Hudson is keen to avoid a similar scenario this time around, and hopes the last two results are a sign of things to come when Championship football resumes after the international break.

He continued: “Last season we took one point from Rotherham over both games that we played them which wasn’t good enough, and we have already lost to Derby and drawn with Portsmouth this year, so we need to make sure in the reverse fixtures we win those and take the points.

“That is the only thing I can see limiting us; our performances this season, the way we are playing and the players we have, we could be one of the top teams in the league. However, we just need to make sure we turn on and keep this run going.

“We need to make sure we don’t do what we did at the start of the season, and have silly draws against teams we should beat, or lose games where we dominate and are the better team.

“The easy fix is putting games to bed early, trying to score two or three goals, which is what we have done against QPR and Luton, where we managed to see out the result and put the match out of sight.”