Middlesbrough are flying right now and are currently sitting in fifth place in the Championship table.

Aitor Karanka’s side have been particularly effective on the road. They lost their first away game of the season at Leeds but have won all three since, winning at Bolton, Huddersfield and Leeds.

The Teessiders were involved in an incredible Capital One Cup game at Anfield on Tuesday. After a 2-2 draw, Liverpool won 14-13 on penalties.

Boro do not concede many goals and as the Addicks have only netted once in each of their last three games, a tight affair is likely.

Charlton have won three and drawn one of their four games at The Valley, so will be in confident mood.

Igor Vetokele has taken a battering in his last two games but Bob Peeters is not intending to bring any reinforcements in as yet. He had this to say at his Thursday press conference:

“At the moment nobody is coming in. But we need to do some fatigue management with our players, so Igor had a few days off for a recovery and then trained toda, and that is what we will do when the international break comes too.

“We will give some people, who have had a big load on, some time off so they can recover not just physically but also mentally.

“When you are always playing and travelling all the time you don’t just become tired in your legs but also your head.

“The playing isn’t the hardest thing, the travelling when you’re on a coach for six and half hours you just become tired. The players must know that sometimes it isn’t good to think about football.”

A worrying aspect of recent games has been the way the Addicks have spent the second half almost exclusively on the back foot.

It is a trait Peeters recognises and he said this about how he has addressed the problem:

“I think in the last three games, and especially in Rotherham, in the second-half because we were leading we were only defending our lead and I think we need to be a little bit more positive.

“We said at half-time at Rotherham as well that we were going to try and score the second goal but we started to run back and that’s when teams start to get stronger.

“If we manage to score the first goal against Middlesbrough then that’s what we need to avoid. If we manage to get 1-0 up then we’ll remain positive and try to score the second goal instead of defending the lead.

“Against Wolves and Rotherham I think we controlled the first-half and then gave it away second-half but we’ve had a long time to work on it this week because we’ve had Saturday to Saturday.

“We’ve trained on some details to help the team and hopefully we can take that into the game.”

With a week’s gap since the Rotherham game, Peeters is likely to field an unchanged back four.

Frederic Bulot will be pushing for a start in midfield and Yoni Buyens picked up his fourth yellow card of the season at Rotherham, and is a booking away from a one match ban.

George Tucudean has yet to settle and was rested at the New York Stadium in favour of Franck Moussa. Peeters may again give with the former Coventry man a start.

Charlton could start with this line-up:

Henderson; Solly, Ben Haim, Bikey, Wiggins; Gudmundsson, Buyens, Jackson, Cousins; Moussa, Vetokele.

Subs: Pope, Fox, Morrison, Wilson, Bulot, Harriott, Tucudean.

The referee will be Gavin Ward from Surrey.

Peeters will be hoping his team can get some sort of result to give them a boost ahead of Tuesday’s difficult trip to Norwich.