Michael Carrick refused to blame Emmanuel Latte Lath’s sale on Middlesbrough’s failure to reach the play-offs this season, conceding that a number of factors were behind their shortcomings.

Latte Lath was sold to Atlanta United in the January transfer window in a club-record sale worth £22.5 million. The striker was leading Boro’s goalscoring charts at the time with 11 goals, adding to the 18 he scored in his first season on Teesside.

While the offer was a substantial amount for Boro, it has since emerged that the club’s desire was to try and keep the striker at the club, at least until the end of the season. His departure was clearly impactful, with their goals drying up and their attack looking far less convincing in the second half of the season.

But asked if he felt it was a determining factor behind the failure to reach the top six, Carrick said: “You can look at all sorts of things. In football, you lose players at times – whether that’s because of a transfer, injury or suspension. That’s part of it. We’ve lost players over time here and that’s just how it is.

“You deal with it and you move on. I believe we had a good enough group to manage that. I don’t think it’s a one player thing. It’s about us all collectively as a group. In the end, over the course of the whole season, we ended up not getting enough to achieve what we wanted to.”

As things settle after the conclusion of the season it has been confirmed that the club are planning a thorough review of the season before deciding on their next steps with regards to their direction for the future and whether Carrick continues in his role as head coach.

Latte Lath’s sale was put forward as one of the mitigating factors that means not reaching the play-offs this season isn’t completely Carrick’s fault. A senior Boro source explained the club’s side of the story of the Ivorian’s exit and how the club preferred not to sell in January.

The striker’s representative had been hankering for a move for a long time and that continued right up the January window. The club source says they attempted to hold talks with the player in December, asking him to stay until the end of the season and fire the club to the Premier League. They promised a new contract if that goal was achieved.

The club source claimed Latte Lath’s representatives made demands that Boro were unable to match and as Atlanta United lodged a huge offer and put a contract said to be worth £70k a week in front of the striker, doubts increased over his commitment. The club source says they felt it too big a risk that the player could become disruptive. At that point it became about negotiating the best possible fee for the striker.

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