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  1. Was sacking Carrick the right decision?

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    Michael Carrick came under fire after Middlesbrough lost out in the race for the Championship play-offs and now he will not have an opportunity to make amends next season.

    He has been the subject of a surprise sacking, but is it the right choice, Boro fans?

    Should he have been given another shot or was his number up?

    Do you think now is a good time to be in search of a new boss?

    Let us know your thoughts here.

  2. Michael Carrick

  3. Carrick departure 'not a knee-jerk reaction'

    Mark Drury
    BBC Radio Tees Middlesbrough commentator

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    Michael Carrick looks downRex Features

    Middlesbrough's decision to sack Michael Carrick may surprise some outside Teesside but one thing it can't be described as is a knee-jerk reaction.

    More than a month has passed since Boro's 2-0 defeat at Coventry on the final day of the Championship season.

    That loss was their 18th of a desperately disappointing season and was followed by the head coach insisting "I'm carrying on" in his BBC Radio Tees Sport post-match interview.

    Many Boro fans had come to the conclusion he would be doing just that as the days and weeks ticked by without any sign of white smoke from the club's Rockliffe Park training ground. However, that silence was not indicative of inaction.

    Boro's hierarchy had let it be known they would be conducting an in-depth review into the reasons a season where promotion had been targeted and budgeted for ended in a failure to reach the play-offs despite an unusually low points total – the lowest for a decade - being required to make them.

    They were as good as their word, conducting a series of meetings, a number of which involved the head coach, while trying to block out the chorus of disapproval from a fan base which had largely become disenchanted and detached by the season's end.

    Chairman Steve Gibson is known to be a big supporter of Carrick and backed his man in February when it seemed his time was up after a home defeat by a Watford side in miserable form led to boos around The Riverside and a seeming acceptance from the man himself that the end could be nigh.

    So Wednesday's news is a sign that despite how much everyone at Middlesbrough might have wanted it to work for Carrick, after nearly three years in charge he was judged to be more of the problem than the solution to their promotion woes.

    Carrick's first season in charge proved to be his best. He succeeded Chris Wilder in October 2022 and hauled an underachieving squad away from the lower reaches of the table before launching a run to the play-offs boosted by the January loan signings of Cameron Archer and Aaron Ramsey and a striker having the season of his life in Chuba Akpom.

    In hindsight, those play-offs were also a sign of problems to come as Boro lost out to a Coventry side they'd allowed to sneak into the top six on the final day of the season while failing to score a goal over 180 minutes of football.

    The following season saw Boro start terribly, losing five of their first seven Championship games and not recording a win until the eighth game of the season.

    Promotion was effectively lost in those early couple of months but a run to the EFL Cup semi-finals gave the season some excitement and a strong end to the campaign (Boro lost just one of their last 12 games) and an eighth-placed finish gave hope this season would be different.

    That was the belief inside the club too with last summer's impressive transfer window and the retention of coveted players like Hayden Hackney, Rav Van den Berg and Emmanuel Latte Lath showing the strength of Boro's backing for their head coach.

    Backing brings expectation though and throughout the season Boro failed to meet it.

    Carrick's supporters will point to January and the club-record sale of Latte Lath as the reason for Boro's 10th-place finish. The counter to that is the fact the player who replaced him, Kelechi Iheanacho, was one the head coach pushed strongly for. Iheanacho's record of one goal and two assists tells its own story.

    The fact less well resourced clubs like Bristol City, Millwall and Blackburn all finished above them was a damning indictment of Boro's performance this season while Sunderland's play-off promotion rubbed salt into the wound.

    Regis Le Bris showed what was possible with a squad of largely young, inexperienced players allied to imaginative coaching from a tactically flexible manager.

    There will be a sense of sadness on Teesside that Carrick was unable to follow up on the promise of that first season when some of the football left fans purring. That sadness will be weighed against the reality the club have gone backwards in the seasons since.

    Attention now will be on who comes next? Rob Edwards is known to be highly rated by head of football Kieran Scott while Sheffield Wednesday's Danny Rohl will be of interest to any Championship club without a manager after his sterling work at Hillsborough.

    It is now 10 years since Boro's last promotion to the Premier League.

    The next manager needs to be the one who brings that long wait to an end.

  4. Rachel Reeves looking out of a train window. She is seated and looking to her right. She has dark hair and is wearing a pale blue jacket and white blouse. A mobile phone is placed on the table in front of her.

  5. Lindel Carre, Valerie Wells and cardiology consultant Paul Williams smile at the camera. Lindel has straight shoulder-length blonde hair and wears glasses, a pink scarf and a black and white cardigan. Valerie has short blonde hair and is wearing glasses, a beige coat and a white scarf with orange flowers. Paul Williams has short brown hair and is wearing a blue shirt and beige trousers. There is a stethoscope over his neck.

  6. Back of head of a boy at a table looking at a notebook. He is holding a pencil while sitting in a classroom. Other pupils sitting in the desks in front of the boy are out of focus.

  7. Fire engine next to van on fire. Flames can be seen coming from the van, which is parked behind the back of a commercial building

  8. Police officers, some in uniform and some plain-clothed, all wearing stab vests, are briefed in a room with a wooden floor.

  9. Robert Nichols standing on Linthorpe Road. He has short grey hair, brushed to his right, and is wearing a blue-and-black Middlesbrough FC tracksuit top. A row of terraced houses can be seen in the background on the left, while on the right are two advertising billboards.

  10. Entrance to University Hospital of Hartlepool. There is a patch of green grass on the verge of the road with an 80s-design hospital building in the background.

  11. Hayley O'Sullivan holding one of her young daughters. Mrs O'Sullivan has long blonde hair and is wearing a white shirt. She is holding a red toy dinosaur in her left hand. Her baby is wearing a cream outfit and has a green dummy in her mouth.

  12. A completely burned out police car with windows fully knocked out. Ashes and debris litter the ground.

  13. The fenced off pedestrian footbridge at South Bank railway station. There is a red and white sign on the fencing but it is illegible.

  14. Susan, a woman, with grey short hair, wearing glasses stands in front of shelving filled with books

  15. Robert Nichols standing on Linthorpe Road. He has short grey hair, brushed to his right, and is wearing a blue-and-black Middlesbrough FC tracksuit top. A row of terraced houses can be seen in the background on the left, while on the right are two advertising billboards.

  16. Mural in the style of the former television teletext service Ceefax. Set against a dark grey brick wall it states in red, yellow, green, blue and white letters: BBC Football: League Cup Final Result. Bolton 1 -2 Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough lift the league cup

  17. In the foreground, blue and white police tape has been attached to a black fence. In the background, forensics officers in white suits are inspecting ground near a fence with a row of houses behind.

  18. Alfie, 17, at a jobs fair in Sunderland. He smiles at the camera and wears a grey Berghaus puffer jacket and peaked cap.

  19. Mary Lanigan, the former leader of Redcar and Cleveland Council, sits in a large, reddish-brown leather armchair. She wears a blue long sleeve top and glasses. She has shoulder length grey hair and sits with her legs crossed and her fingers linked together on her lap.

  20. A selection of confiscated illegal vapes of all colours and sizes

  21. (L-R) Gen, Stephen and Alyson Portlock stood outside a brick office building. Gen wears large square glasses and a pink jumper, Stephen wears a blue t-shirt and Alyson wears a black and white striped top.

  22. A pitch black night with a white Range Rover on the left of a drive next to a Mitsubishi. Both are covered in flames and the drive itself is on fire. A tree can be seen in the background lit by the orange glow.

  23. The outside of the reception area of The Friarage Hospital. The building is made of brick and there are an ambulance, a white van and a white car parked outside.

  24. The entrance to the James Cook University Hospital. A wall displaying the hospital's name is surrounded by flowers and shrubs.