Boro boss Aitor Karanka will not underestimate our opposition tonight. The team relegated from the Premier League still contain many top class players. Having been defeated at home from a winning position on Saturday, makes them more dangerous still. They will be like a wounded animal tonight but lets hope we can get into them from the start and make it a very big week on the road for The Boro.

It will certainly be a long week on the road for Boro fans. But another good performance and a positive result would be reward for all the hard miles.

Aitor Karanka had this to say about our opponents tonight.

“Cardiff haven't started very well but I am sure that they are going to be in the highest position at the end of the season and they are a team that got relegated last season from the Premier League and it is a Premier League stadium and a Premier League club with a Premier manager.”

There is little doubt that Cardiff find themselves in a false position. They are still readjusting to life back in the Championship but our task is simple to continue to make it hard and uncomfortable for them. But we must not underestimate them because they failed to win their home game on Saturday v Norwich.

“It is going to be a very difficult game and after their game last Saturday it is going to be even more difficult because when you are losing at home in the way that they lost it will be more difficult for us.”

Aitor continued to praise the red Bluebirds.

“It will be very tough because the first thing is that they are a very good team, a very good squad and coach and the second thing and important is the way that they lost last game, they were winning 2-0 and then they lost against Norwich 4-2. They will not be very happy and they will want to fix this mistake.”

The Huddersfield win has given us back the belief robbed by those two home defeats to Sheff Wed and Reading. Karanka talked about this yesterday at the pre- match press conference at the Hurworth training HQ.

“The most important thing was to win the last game against Huddersfield because after two defeats at home it was very difficult for us and now the players have less pressure and now they are more confident and they feel we can win again the games. And it is better to go to Cardiff without the pressure that we have to go to win the game because we lost 2 points in the last minute and we are now thinking we can go there to win the game.”

You could see the difference to the team for having a couple of weeks to work together during the international break. I put it to Aitor that players like Clayton and Damia benefited from that break, working with their new team mates.

“I think we could feel Clayton more confident last Saturday. For me after the defeat against Sheffield Wednesday the best thing to happen was to have a game in two days, the cup game but after our defeat to Reading the best thing to happen for us was to have two weeks break with all the squad. For us that was very important and now we have another four or five games in 20 days.”

Let's hope we can sink the former Premier club tonight and leave Wales with more points in the bag and the feeling we are now moving in the right direction up the table.

“The most important thing always is that we start well and more importantly on Tuesday because after their game on Saturday against Norwich they want to show everybody the kind of team that they are. For that reason we must not go there thinking it is going to be an easy game because they lost their last game at home we will be making a very big mistake. For that reason we have to start the game with concentration.”