AITOR Karanka may not have celebrated his first year in charge of Middlesbrough with a win, but the head coach is satisfied his side are in a good position to achieve their objective of promotion.

A win over fellow high-flyers Bournemouth would have sent Boro top of the Championship for the first time in two years and capped off an impressive turnaround under the Spaniard, who was appointed a year ago on Thursday.

However, the Teessiders were held to a 0-0 draw in front of their biggest crowd of the season in a game that saw both teams effectively cancel each other out.

Karanka’s men go into the international break one point behind Derby, who leap-frogged both Boro and Bournemouth after their 5-0 win over Wolves, but the head coach believes his team is well placed going into the final weeks of the year.

“I am very pleased because it is one year since I arrived here,” Karanka said. “If you look at the table one year ago, we were eight points below the play-off positions and now we are four points above seventh position.

“It is our objective (promotion), we know how difficult it is going to be to keep this position.

“But if we work in the same way we will get the objective. But everyone has to know that it is going to be very difficult.

“I’m not disappointed we haven’t gone top, because I have said a lot of times, I would like to be in that position at the end of the season. “To be there now is not important. The most important thing is to be in the six highest positions, always in the play-off positions, and we need to keep working very, very hard if we want to keep it.”

“It is not a pressure. It is our objective. When we were speaking at the beginning of the season, everyone believed in this aim so we have to keep working.

“The players are very, very confident. They have showed they are experienced players because these are the sort of the games that if you can’t win, it’s important you don’t lose. They worked very, very well.”

Almost 23,000 turned up to get behind the Teessiders on Saturday, but Boro couldn’t put on the kind of show supporters have seen in recent wins over Rotherham and Norwich City.

Eddie Howe’s men demonstrated why they too should be regarded as serious promotion contenders with chances created at either end.

Adam Reach rattled the crossbar in the first half and Matt Ritchie forced a superb save from Dimi Konstantopoulos not long after.

“It was a very difficult game,” Karanka said. “Before the game you could feel the atmosphere, everyone was very excited.

“Sometimes during the game the players were a little bit anxious and I can understand them perfectly because it is a new situation for us. We played against one of the best teams in the league, it is not a coincidence that they are in this position, so I am very, very happy.

“In the bad moments the crowd were perfect. They are the moments where you need your people and they were once again brilliant. I just want to say thanks.”

Having suffered defeat only once in their last 12 games, the mood on Teesside is confident and despite failing to win in front of a large crowd Karanka believes the one against the Cherries could prove to be important later on in the season.

He said: “We are now very confident. We have won seven points in the last three games against three very, very difficult teams.

“We played very well against Norwich, especially the second half, and today, you can think it is just one point, but for me it was a very important point because the performance was very, very good.”