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Boro's next four fixtures are “massive” admits Aitor Karanka, but the head coach isn’t looking beyond tomorrow’s game at Nottingham Forest.

The City Ground showdown with Dougie Freedman’s rapidly improving team is followed by a televised home clash against Ipswich and back-to-back trips to Derby and Bournemouth.

But Karanka is fully focused on Forest, who are 11 points adrift of the play-offs but have won five of their last seven fixtures.

“Of course, the following four games are massive for us,” he said.

“But if you see the fixtures everybody has difficult fixtures, everybody has to play teams at the top of the table so we have to think about ourselves and the Nottingham game and after that we have one week to prepare for the other three games.

“It’s normal that they think about those games but we can win three games in a row and arrive at Bournemouth top of the table with five or six points ahead of third position and we can lose those three games and we can be two points below the play-off position.

“The players know my philosophy and mentality and we don’t win anything thinking about the games against Ipswich, Derby and Bournemouth now.”