Michael Carrick not hiding his disappointment despite Middlesbrough's battling draw at Ipswich

Michael Carrick could not hide his disappointment as Middlesbrough drew 1-1 with Ipswich Town, making their play-off ambitions a long stretch with just three games remaining.

Carrick took pride in the performance in isolation, with Boro taking a point in a hard-fought battle with table-toppers Ipswich Town. But having made clear in recent weeks that Boro needed wins in their bid to overturn the gap between themselves and the play-off places, his overriding feeling after the game at Portman Road was disappointment.

“It’s a tough place to come and you can see they’re a really good team, confidence is high and they’re in a really good place," the Boro boss said. "Their record here is really good. So it was always going to be challenging to come here, which makes it probably a decent point in isolation.

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"But, for us, we came here to win and we wanted to win, so it’s a bit of mixed feelings really overall. It could have been three points with the chances we had. I thought the boys did ever so well and put in a hell of an effort. On a normal day, we might see that as a good result, but there’s no hiding from what we need at this stage. We were close and possibly should have won it.”

The point left Boro eight points behind sixth-placed Norwich City with just nine left to play for. That was because the Canaries scored late at Preston North End to win 1-0. It means, with Boro not back in action now until Leeds United visit a week on Monday, top six will become a mathematical impossibility if Norwich beat Bristol City at Carrow Road next Saturday.

Focusing more on matters in Suffolk, however, it was an entertaining game of football, following on from an action-packed draw at Hull City in midweek. Emmanuel Latte Lath continued his fine form to give Boro the lead, but again they failed to keep it as ex-Boro man Massimo Luongo equalised before the interval.

Both sides had chances for more goals, with Ipswich's coming more in a positive first half. Boro solidified defensively in the second half and might have won it late on when Vaclav Hladky made two excellent stops to deny Isaiah Jones and Matt Clarke.

Carrick continued: “I thought we handled the occasion pretty well, got ourselves in front with a good goal and grew into the game. In the second half we were defensively better and had chances on the break. We’ve often come away to the teams at the top and done well. But there’s no hiding from the fact that there is a bit of disappointment that we haven’t won the game."