Middlesbrough will be looking to put the stresses of a difficult few weeks on Teesside to one side on Saturday as they take on League Two side Accrington Stanley in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Boro's only win in their last six games came in this competition at home to Sheffield Wednesday, and manager Aitor Karanka is keen for a cup run to boost his wavering side's form and morale.

Their opponents also find themselves in trouble in the league, with just three points and three places separating them from the fourth-tier relegation spots.

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The hosts will be without on-loan Arsenal defender Calum Chambers for up to the next month with a stress fracture to his foot, though the extent of the injury is not yet fully clear.

Fellow right-back Antonio Barragan is also ruled out, meaning Fabio could start on the right with centre-half Daniel Ayala serving the last game of his three-match suspension for his straight red card in the last round.

Though Alvaro Negredo will be keen to rediscover his goalscoring touch, at least one of Boro's January signings in Patrick Bamford or Rudy Gestede is likely to start up front.

Meanwhile, Accrington manager John Stanley has admitted he will have to field a strong starting eleven to be in with a chance of snatching a famous result at the Riverside.

Head-to-head

Such an outcome would not be without historical precedent, as Stanley won the only previous encounter between the two sides in the League Cup in 2013, months before Karanka took the helm on Teesside.

A crowd of fewer than 7,000 people watched as Boro were humbled 2-1 at home thanks to goals from Marcus Carver and Piero Mingoia, despite Lukas Jutkiewicz's early opener for a Boro side then in the Championship.

Grant Leadbitter, George Friend and Ben Gibson are the sole survivors in the Boro squad from that encounter, and are now Karanka's captain, vice-captain and stand-in captain at the club.

'We know it's a tough game'

Karanka has confirmed that both Gestede and Bamford are ready to play, but warned his team against complacency ahead of what he thinks could be a tricky fixture.

"Both can start," he confirmed in his pre-match press conference. "Both have been training all week.

"Sometimes if you make a lot of chances your team is not as strong but the eleven players who go to the pitch will be the best to go and win the game.

"If we look at the League Two table, we are making a mistake.

"We have to go to the game knowing it’s a tough game. This year we have less games than we had in Championship. I try to win every single game and we don’t have any excuses."

'We go there to win'

Meanwhile, his opposite number Coley has banished any suggestion that he will look to secure a potentially lucrative replay fixture on home soil with a draw on Saturday.

"I will be going to win, it’s the only way I know,” he claimed. “I have seen teams in the past approach the game not to get beat and it has paid off – it paid off handsomely for Plymouth at Liverpool recently.

“A draw would be good financially for the club as there is the revenue from a replay and you will probably be on television.

“But it’s not in my nature to set up a team like that. I believe when you are going out to play a game of football, whether it’s a friendly or against a Premier League team, you should go out to try and win.”