MIDDLESBROUGH head coach Aitor Karanka is confident Damia Abella will come back stronger after the right-back was ruled out for six months.

Abella was stretchered off in the second half of Boro’s 1-0 win at Cardiff City on Tuesday night and scans have confirmed damaged to his anterior cruciate ligament.

The Spaniard, who will have an operation to repair the problem, has made a good impression since signing on a free transfer over the summer, but it remains to be seen whether the 32-year-old will play again this season.

Karanka knows all about Abella’s pain having suffered the same injury during his time at Athletic Bilbao.

“It is his ACL,” Karanka confirmed. “We thought at the game it was a serious injury.

“Normally this kind of injury is six months. I suffered it when I was a player and it was six months.

“He is obviously not happy, but he was better than all of us and was the first to understand his injury.

“He will have an operation and then rehab and we’ll hopefully have him back as soon as possible.

“He is always happy around his team-mates and is trying to learn English as soon as possible to communicate.

“He is an experienced player. He’s not old, but he is old enough to understand his situation now and I am sure he is going to come back with a lot of energy.

“This is the first time he has had this kind of injury. There was no tackle. My case nine years ago was very similar. When he was explaining his feelings to me I remembered my injury and it was the same. He just turned and heard something in his knee. That is football.”

Karanka confirmed on loan Tottenham youngster Ryan Fredericks will replace Abella at right-back for tomorrow’s visit of Brentford, although the Boro boss revealed that was always going to be the case.

He said: “I had already told Ryan he was going to play this Saturday, because we have a lot of games and I wanted to give Damia a rest.

“Ryan has been ready to play on Saturday since last Tuesday and I trust him 100 per cent.

“He is a young lad. He played 14 games for Millwall last season so he knows the division and the league.

“He’s a right-back but he likes to go forward. He has energy to play. I was speaking with his manager (Mauricio Pochettino) and I have no doubt he will play well.”

Boro could make it three consecutive wins with a result tomorrow and having lost their last two at the Riverside Karanka is looking for an improvement in their home form.

Wins at Huddersfield and Cardiff have seen Boro move up to ninth in the Championship table, but the Spaniard feels the squad won’t be able to build on their encouraging start unless they start winning in front of their own fans.

“It is the most important thing to win our games at home,” Karanka said.

“It is nice to win games like Huddersfield when there is 3,200 people supporting us, but imagine how beautiful it would be if we won our games at home with 20,000 people watching us.

“For this reason we have to be strong at home and show everybody we are a strong team. For me, it’s the first step to building something.

“I want us to be consistent. I don’t want my team winning two games the losing one. It’s the same for the supporters. I don’t want them to be sad one day, happy for two days, then sad again. I want a consistent team.”

Karanka is also without Daniel Ayala, but Tomas Mejias and James Husband are available after recovering from injury.

The Boro head coach has experimented with his back four this season, particularly his two centre-backs.

While the head coach would like to be able to field the same two in every game, he admits the fact he has four strong central defenders is a big help.

“Sometimes I have to change it,” Karanka said. “Kenneth was with the national team last week and on Saturday I will have to change it again because we don’t have Daniel (Ayala).

“I would like to play with the same central defenders or the same defence always, but I have a squad with four very good central defenders. If I have to change it, I don’t have any problems.”