'It's a special place'- Michael Carrick reacts to Middlesbrough's fixture list with a home start

Michael Carrick says fixture release day excites him as much as any supporter as he looks ahead to the new season with a clear view of what's to come now. And with the schedule throwing up a home game against Swansea City to start, there are even more reasons for him to be excited.

The Boro head coach has made clear his promotion aspirations for the season ahead and Boro have been working hard on recruitment as a result, fine-tuning the squad with key additions in prioritised areas early in the summer window. Aidan Morris' impending arrival will tick off three of the four key transfers they wanted to fulfil this summer in what is just the first week of pre-season.

And thanks to fixture release day, Boro now know they will kick off the new season at home to Swansea on Saturday, August 10, with Carrick's side looking to win their opening game of a season for the first time in ten years. They also aim for a fast start having been forced to play catch-up thanks to slow starts in recent years.

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Reacting to the fixture list, Carrick told the club website: “It’s nice to start at home. When we’re at home and playing well and the energy and noise and connection is there, it’s a special place to play. It’s something we want to build on because we didn’t have great home form last season, but we had some good days and nights and we want to build on that.

"The first game you can look at in all sorts of ways. There is a little bit of an unknown. This year it’s Swansea for us and you can read into pre-season what you can, but the first two of three games really are a little more challenging for us in terms of looking at the opposition because you’re guessing a little bit and taking the majority of your analysis from pre-season, which doesn’t always paint the true picture.

"In terms of preparation, it’s fresh and going with what we’ve got really. As the season progresses, you start building a build of a library of the other teams and what they look like, what they’re trying to do etc. After Swansea we have two newly promoted sides in Derby and Portsmouth, which is definitely a challenge. Just because they’re just coming up doesn’t mean that they’re lower in the ladder.

"I think Ipswich showed that last season and then there are other examples over the years. Derby will be their first home game so they’ll be up for that. There are all sorts of different challenges along the way and it’s a slight unknown because we haven’t played against them in quite some time. We’ll have to deal with that when it comes.”

Looking further ahead, Boro also welcome back football to the Riverside Stadium on Boxing Day, after playing away at Rotherham United last term. Always a highly-anticipated game and a bumper crowd, Boro this year will host Sheffield Wednesday - the last team to beat them on December 26 at the Riverside back in 2018.

“From our perspective, it’s another game but there’s no hiding from the fact that if it’s at home it’s a little bit easier to deal with [logistically]," Carrick said. "If it is away, like last year, it’s not a massive deal and we do what we have to do.

"But to be at home, and at home on the 29th too [against Burnley], it’s a good period for us. I don’t think they’re [festive fixtures] particularly congested this year. It’s not far off a normal week in many ways. So it doesn’t really affect us much.”

Fixture release day tends to always divide fans, with many using it as a source of excitement for the new season as they start planning away trips and looking for key periods and games throughout a campaign. For others, it's merely just an order of games, with every team to play twice and too many unknowns at this stage about how each side will fare next term. For Carrick, his feelings are quite similar.

On the feeling of someone on the inside, he said: “We still get that same sense of excitement because it makes the new season feel closer. We’ve had a nice break and a bit of time off and the first game of the season is kind of the next big thing that you look forward to.

"We now know what’s ahead of us and who we’ll be playing and what it looks like. So it is a similar feeling of excitement. Obviously we have to approach it a little more business-like, but you still get that sense of the new season being around the corner which we look forward to.

"I look for the same things as fans too. I look at the start and see what that looks like and then the end as well because hopefully we will be in it and fighting for something at the end. Having said that, it’s always hard to tell what team will be doing what at that stage of the season.

"You’re guessing really because you don’t really know how other teams will be at the time you play them. In the grand scheme of things, you have to just play what’s in front of you and get on with it. It’s not a massive deal, but at the same time, it doesn’t stop us looking forward to it.”