Aitor Karanka fired a subtle shot across the bows of Boro’s principle strikers this week.
Jelle Vossen, Patrick Bamford and Kike Garcia all notched in Boro’s 3-0 victory over Milwall.
That took their combined Championship tally for the season to 25, which is a good deal short of the total achieved by several of their rivals.
Karanka has consistently maintained that he has the best strikers in the division and there’s no doubt that there would be no shortage of takers if any of them were available.
But, for the first time this season, he has used stats to illustrate that his frontmen are far from the most prolific in the Championship.
“The strikers are different players, they need to score for their confidence and against Millwall we were lucky because they all scored,” said Karanka.
“If you look at the teams which are in a similar position to us, their strikers have scored 40-45 goals and we are 25. I am not concerned because I know their quality, but for them it is very important because they need confidence.
“All of them scoring is very good for us because we are now arriving at the most important moment in the season.”
Karanka has always backed his strikers publicly so for him to mention the disparity in strike-rates is a change of policy.
He wasn’t exactly criticising them, just hinting that he expected his strikers to convert more of the chances they are presented with.
The Boro boss certainly denied that his team didn’t create enough goalscoring opportunities.
“We create plenty of chances,” he said. “I would be concerned if we didn’t create chances.
“We had lots of chances against Leeds and then we had lots in the first half against Bolton.
“Sheffield was the only game when we didn’t create lots. Even when we beat Huddersfield or Derby we created plenty of chances.”
Going into Tuesday’s game, Vossen had scored one league goal in nine fixtures, Kike one in 13 and Bamford one in four, or three in seven, depending how many games to analyse.
Karanka denied that his trio of strikers have suffered a crisis in confidence.
“If they had each scored 25 goals and then scored none it could be a lack of confidence, but they have all gone through spells of scoring throughout the season,” he explained.
“I don’t think it’s down to a lack of confidence.
“Everyone can make mistakes but when one team is not winning games the focus is on the defenders or the goalkeeper but the number of goals we have conceded is amazing in this league.
“They know they have to improve and they know they are responsible.”
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