'Enjoyed the game': Michael Carrick's verdict on Middlesbrough's goalless draw with Burnley

Despite the lack of goals, both sides played their part in what was a high level entertaining encounter at Riverside in the final Championship fixture of 2024.

Both sides had their moments, but it was the Clarets who came closest to taking all three points when Josh Brownhill blazed over from just eight yards out.

It was an otherwise close and cagey encounter between two sides chasing for promotion, but Scott Parker’s men were eventually forced to settle for a point that extends their unbeaten run to 11 games.

As for Carrick, he was happy with the way Boro went about their business.

"I really enjoyed the game actually,” he said. “I thought it was a real test of both teams. We tested each other in so many different ways.

"It wasn’t the most entertaining or exciting game maybe in terms of goalmouth action, but I thought within the game there was a really good level and we dealt with it really well.

"We stepped up to it really well, we defended particularly well for large spells. We couldn’t quite find that final bit around the goal, that final pass or that final action that we normally find, but we controlled the game well at times and I just thought it was a pretty even game.

"Over the two games and with the run they’ve been on, for us to do that we can take a lot of positives. It shows that when we’re at a certain level we’re a good team, we’ve just got to find that consistency to be where we want to be.

"I felt we had good possession and made them work for it, made them close a lot of spaces off and work really hard for their result as well, so there’s two sides to the game. Possession isn’t everything. It doesn’t win you games. It takes a bit of everything to win it.

"You have to be humble enough and I’m certainly not precious enough to admit when we defend we want to defend well and enjoy defending and I think we did that.”