What to do with Tomas Mejias?
A couple of months ago the answer would have been unanimous, try to offload the Spanish stopper.
Five unconvincing games at the start of this season following on his from nervous debut last year was enough.
He wasn't good enough for the English game, was the general consensus. He lacked the confidence and physicality to make it in the hustle and bustle world of the Championship.
The ink on his Boro contract was still damp but Mejias was filed away in the Karanka transfer mistake category - a rarity.
Such was the standard of his early season displays, Mejias suddenly found himself not just out of the firing line between the posts but out of the squad all together.
Blackman brought in, Mejias, we assumed, merely making up the numbers on the training pitch.
But rather than disregard his time at Boro as a failure and look for the first possible move back to Spain, the 26-year-old has now given Aitor Karanka something to ponder.
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Arsenal's Wojciech Szczesny with Middlesbrough's Tomas Mejias
Back from the cold for the FA Cup third round clash at Barnsley, his clean sheet and one particular superb save in the final moments went unnoticed.
But for the stopper it was a step on the ladder.
And if a clean sheet at Oakwell was routine stuff, a shut-out at the Etihad was anything but.
Silva, Aguero, Navas and Jovetic tried but failed. Mejias stood firm for 90 minutes with an eye-catching eyebrow-raising display.
Chris Vaughan/CameraSport 
Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka, left, and Middlesbrough's Tomas Mejias celebrate the win over Manchester City in the FA Cup
One inspired performance proves nothing but the Spaniard followed that up with another terrific showing at the Emirates.
Indeed, Mejias was the best of Boro's performers on the big stage in north London, highlighting that his memorable afternoon at the home of the Premier League champions in the round earlier was no fluke.
What will have pleased Boro's boss most in both games against the Premier League giants was the manner in which Mejias commanded his area.
The nervous keeper who looked lost between the sticks at the start of the campaign was replaced by a confident stopper, sharp off his line and aware of the danger and, most impressively, convincingly claiming crosses and corners with relative ease.
His save to deny Sanchez in the second half unsurprisingly hogged the headlines but the manner in which he raced off his line and was first to numerous inch-perfect through balls from Ozil and Cazorla was just as impressive.
Boro can take heart from their performances against Manchester City and Arsenal but none of the players will benefit from the injection of confidence like the young stopper.
If you can put in assured displays like that at stadiums such as the Etihad and the Emirates then surely you can do it on any stage?
Not necessarily. Bizarrely, it's his first game back behind the defence at the Riverside which will be the real gauge of the stopper's development.
The ironic cheers that greeted routine catches and saves earlier in the campaign will have contributed to Karanka's decision to take him out of the firing line.
Decisions like that can make or break a player. It's a credit to Mejias that he's bounced back to give the boss something to think about once more.
So what now for the keeper? Did the cup exit at Arsenal mark the end of the season for Mejias? In a word, no.
"If someone is thinking that Tomas is not going to play more games because we don't have more cup games they are making a mistake," said the boss.
Karanka doesn't shy away from making a big decision but it would be extremely harsh on Dimi to drop him given the fact Boro have the best defensive record in the football league.
And it would be a huge gamble, regardless of the quality of the second choice keeper's recent displays.
The big Greek is in the form of his career, keeping five clean sheets in six league games at the turn of the year.
Rotating keepers isn't the answer either. Defenders benefit playing in front of the same stopper week in, week out.
But Boro and Dimi himself will know the 36-year-old isn't the long-term solution, even if Shay Given demonstrated last year that keepers can retain their class into their late 30s.
At some point you feel Karanka will have to give Mejias a run in the team to determine whether he is good enough to take control of the No.1 spot.
But it would be a risk to do that in the middle of the pressure cooker of a promotion chase.
The boss has repeatedly emphasised his desire to have two players competing for every position. His wish was granted thanks to the excellent work of the club in the transfer market.
And a revitalised Mejias means it's also the case between the sticks as the summer signing puts pressure on the ever-reliable Konstantopoulos.
Not only did the FA Cup run give the players a taste of the type of teams they could come up against and stadiums they could play in next season.
It also showed that perhaps we were all too hasty to write Mejias off.
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