Tony Pulis: Middlesbrough must get the ball to Adama Traore quicker against Aston Villa

Traore, who joined Boro from Villa in 2016, was the centre of attention heading into Saturday’s first-leg at the Riverside Stadium.

But he ended up being well shackled by the visitors and in particular veteran Villa full-back Alan Hutton, who switched flanks to marshal the winger in the second half. Pulis admitted his team must do a better job of bringing Traore into the game.

He said: “I thought we created good opportunities from other people on Saturday. Adama’s a massive threat for anybody in this league, so it’s important that we get the ball out to him at times a little bit quicker than we did on Saturday.

“There were times when we could have got the ball to him quicker and people had too many touches, so that’s one of the things we spoke about yesterday.

“But we have just got to keep doing what we are doing. If we bring our A-game to Villa Park and we get the breaks and we get the run of the ball - which I don’t think we did have on Saturday – then who knows?

“We’ve got as good a chance as them.”

Pulis is keeping his fingers crossed over central defender Daniel Ayala, who limped out of Saturday’s game with a knee injury.

The Spaniard was heading to hospital for a scan on Monday after being forced off during the second half at the Riverside.

Ayala is a key player for Boro at set-pieces in both boxes, with the 27-year-old having seven Championship goals to his name this term.

Pulis said: “He’s going for a scan, so we’ll see what the scan says. But obviously if there’s any chance of Dani playing, he’s going to play.

“We’ll wait until he comes back from the hospital and we’ll take a view then.”

“The players are looking forward to the game. There wasn’t any pressure on us at all on Saturday and the mindset for us going into tonight is to dust ourselves down, clear our minds and give it our best shot.”