WHAT will it take for Middlesbrough to finish in the top six this season?
If the last five campaigns are anything to go by, then 16 points at the very minimum from their remaining nine Championship games.
Only once in the last five seasons has a team managed to sneak into the play-offs having accumulated fewer than 70 points.
That was Tony Mowbray’s Sunderland, who finished on 69 points in the 22/23 season. In four of the other five most recent seasons, it’s taken 73, 75, 77 and 70.
And in the five years previous, the sixth-placed teams finished on 74, 75, 80, 74 and 78 points.
The top four looks set this season, with Sunderland 15 points clear of seventh placed Bristol City ahead of the weekend games. That leaves what currently looks to be a seven-team battle for fifth and sixth.
Just five points currently separates West Brom in fifth and Sheffield Wednesday in 11th, with Norwich a couple of points back in 12th.
Boro will almost certainly, then, need at least five wins from their remaining nine games. And if you were to pick out the games where those wins will or can come, Saturday’s trip to second bottom Luton Town and the home game against Oxford after the break look like opportunities Boro can’t afford to pass up.
“It’s difficult to say exactly how much we’ll need,” said boss Michael Carrick.
“From week to week, game to game, it’s easy to get caught up in so many different things.
“In this moment, we’re right there, we’ve got a chance. We’ve just got to take it game by game and keep trying to pick up the points as we have done in the last week or so.”
In terms of their rivals, Bristol City host Norwich on Friday night, Blackburn are at home to Cardiff on Saturday and West Brom welcome Hull City to the Hawthorns.
Boro could also do with a favour from Sunderland, who are away at a Coventry side looking to bounce back from their surprise midweek defeat at Derby.
Watford are at Oxford on Saturday and Sheffield Wednesday are at home to Sheffield United in the Steel City derby on Sunday.
Boro will no doubt have an eye on what goes on elsewhere but Carrick his side have to just focus on getting the required results themselves rather than hoping for favours.
“I think we’ll be using the word important quite a bit for all the games coming up,” he said.
“I don’t want to keep repeating the same things, but genuinely, it does get to the stage where it’s literally just about keeping your focus so narrow really.
“We have to focus only on what we can do and what we can control. There are a lot of other things going on, a lot of things you can get caught up in like thinking too far ahead, considering ifs and buts.
“For us, it’s about one game – whatever is the next game. Obviously after this one is a bit of a break, but after that, it’s all eyes on that next game that we can instantly do something about.”
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