The moment Boro lost their attacking spark and fear factor

THE WEEK THAT CHANGED THE FACE OF CARRICK'S SIDE

- By CRAIG JOHNS Football writer

BEN Doak was back at the Riverside on Saturday. Sadly, the Liverpool loan star was there to say his goodbyes, as he confirmed the long-since expected news that his season was over, and thus so was his loan spell at Middlesbrough.

His reappearance on Teesside on a day Boro drew with Norwich City in another insipid attacking display only served as a reminder of what once was.

The fact of the matter is, since selling Emmanuel Latte Lath and losing Doak to injury in the same week, Boro have lost their attacking spark. They've lost their fear factor.

While this season technically isn’t over yet, that must become a huge priority of the summer ahead. Boro simply have to rediscover that because, since that final week of the January transfer window, while scraping through enough results to prolong their play-off battle, Michael Carrick’s side have been far from convincing. In truth, for the most part they've been quite dull.

The summer transfer window will offer opportunities to bolster attacking options. Kelechi Iheanacho arrived as Latte Lath’s replacement and that was, quite obviously with hindsight in mind, a mistake. Doak’s situation was more bad luck. An injury not initially expected to be a big problem, Boro also boosted forward options in January with the signing of Morgan Whittaker and loan capture of Samuel Iling-Junior.

Whittaker has so far struggled to make any kind of positive impression at Boro, while Iling-Junior hasn’t had quite the impact that was hoped, even if he has at least settled into the side of late, albeit at left-back rather than on the left wing.