I was sat in the press conference room at St Mary’s Stadium back in May when Kim Hellberg forced back tears as he talked about everything he’d sacrificed. All the time spent away from his family, all those nights when he called them to say he wouldn’t be coming home because he had more Southampton matches to watch.
And despite them all, there the Middlesbrough manager still sat, beaten in the second leg of the Championship play-off semi-final by a manager who sent staff to spy on his training session and who was, for now, going to Wembley.
‘I have nothing to say to him,’ Hellberg had replied when asked if he had spoken to Southampton boss Tonda Eckert. Hellberg had already completed his TV and local radio interviews but informed club staff that he still had things, about sacrifices, that he wanted to say.
In the end, of course, it was not over for Hellberg and Boro. Thanks to Daily Mail Sport’s stunning Spygate exclusive, Saints were eventually expelled and Boro went to Wembley in their place. By then, though, the chaos had taken its toll. Those who saw Hellberg in the build-up to the play-off final described him as exhausted and drained.
As did his players, who were left in limbo as they tried, somehow, to remain fit and alert. Luke Ayling, the club’s captain, found out they were going to Wembley while he was bathing his young son just days before the final. Middlesbrough lost to Hull, and had to prepare for a 10th successive season in the Championship. They should have gone up automatically but blew it, having spent most of the season second in the table.
All of that madness and heartbreak could, quite easily, have left Boro with too many scars and yet they host Charlton this weekend sitting top of the Championship, on a 10-game unbeaten run. Somehow, Boro have kicked on again and sources close to the dressing room believe they are better set than ever for a return to the top flight.
Kim Hellberg has led Middlesbrough to the top of the Championship as they banish all memories of Spygate
Aidan Morris celebrates scoring against Burnley last month – Boro are flying as they welcome Charlton on Saturday on a 10-game unbeaten run
For a start, Spygate has barely been mentioned. There’s been no talk of it, according to club insiders, except to discuss the impending return to St Mary’s at the end of November, one which everyone expects to be poisonous.
That has certainly not been helped by the FA’s decision to, effectively, let Eckert off scot free, and how much the Saints and their fans have appeared to revel in it. ‘Everyone in football knows it’s nonsense,’ said one source.
Boro, meanwhile, have just got better. It helps when you play like Paris Saint-Germain. ‘People might laugh,’ said Hellberg, who twice made a point last week of claiming Boro’s style of play shows similarities to the French giants. Hellberg watched PSG’s clash with Barcelona in the Champions League and was drawn to the similar ‘massive spaces’ left in their midfield as they look to be brave in attack.
That is how Hellberg wants his side to play, as risky as it sometimes looks to the casual observer, because it means creating a horde of good chances. They have the most xG (expected goals, which measures the quality of chances created) of any team in the league. Their ‘expected goal difference’, the gulf between the chances they create and concede, has rocketed since Hellberg took over from Rob Edwards almost a year ago.
Now, they have the player they needed to take those chances in striker Will Lankshear, the Championship’s top scorer, who has recently been labelled the ‘next Harry Kane’. No pressure.
Having been released by Arsenal, then gone through the Tottenham academy (via Sheffield United) before being sent out on loan to several clubs, there are plenty of parallels there, not least because Lankshear is proving himself to be one of the most lethal English strikers around.
His 11 goals so far in the Championship make him the leading scorer across the top four divisions of English football, with two more than Erling Haaland. Like Kane, he’s a superb technical finisher.
There was some surprise when Tottenham agreed to sell him in the summer for an initial £8million that could rise to £20m. But with Roberto De Zerbi showing little interest in academy players, Lankshear knew he had to make a move to get game time. Spurs inserted a matching rights clause should anyone try to swoop in for him.
Will Lankshear’s 11 goals so far in the Championship make him the leading scorer across the top four divisions of English football, with two more than Erling Haaland
Sources close to the dressing room talk of a thoughtful, intelligent lad – ‘his head’s screwed on right,’ says one – who left money on the table to join Boro despite more lucrative offers from elsewhere in the Championship, Europe, and Premier League, including Leeds, because he knew he would be given the minutes to flourish, in a team that creates heaps of chances and just needed someone to finish them off.
‘I’ve learnt as much as I have my whole life in one week under Kim,’ said Lankshear recently.
So much of Boro’s hopes, say insiders, rest on Lankshear’s shoulders. Hellberg rested him for their recent game against Cardiff, only for the 21-year-old to come off the bench to score the equaliser. You suspect he won’t be making the same mistake again.
Sources describe Hellberg as a ‘football geek’. He grew up, like many men in their 30s, playing Football Manager. When previewing Boro’s trip to Bolton last week, a thumping 5-1 win that sent them top, Hellberg said he hadn’t been there before but remembered playing against the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha and Kevin Nolan on the video game. One of his heroes, Frank Lampard, phoned him to offer some words of advice ahead of the play-off final.
Hellberg celebrated the Bolton win by rewatching the game three times. He’d likely have watched it more if they lost.
When he was asked by a Charlton reporter last season if he had ever been to the Valley, Hellberg revealed he had with his dad Stefan, also a football coach in Sweden, during tours of a few grounds in London when he was a young boy.
Hellberg is described as a hands-on coach, one who likes to bombard his players with video clips about the minutiae of their game, and their opponents’. He’s hot on his data. Those who see him week in, week out, say he’s forever dropping stats into conversations and press conferences.
His first role was in the part-time Swedish seventh tier, during which he worked as a gymnastics teacher, and in a kindergarten teaching three to six-year-olds. ‘They are more like the players than you think,’ said Hellberg.
Sources talk of Lankshear as a thoughtful, intelligent lad – ‘his head’s screwed on right,’ says one – who left money on the table to join Boro despite more lucrative offers
So much of Boro’s hopes, say insiders, rest on Lankshear’s shoulders
As with many clubs on the rise – and on the slide – the foundations for that success, or failure, come from far above the grass. Just days after the Wembley heartache, Hellberg sat down with head of football Kieran Scott and head of recruitment Chris Jones to draw up their plans and key targets for the summer. Boro landed most of them.
They beat lots of clubs to Lankshear, whom they had tracked for a while. They snapped up Ashley Phillips, also from Spurs, who was their top defensive target. And Radek Vitek, from Manchester United, their top goalkeeper target.
The loan arrival of Brighton winger Amario Cozier-Duberry was described as the ‘icing on the cake’. Adilson Malanda, the French centre back, was described by one source as the ‘nearest we’ve had to Jonathan Woodgate since Jonathan Woodgate’.
‘We signed the quality that we didn’t have 12 months ago,’ said one club insider. ‘They are a level better. That’s the huge difference.’ This is what Boro have got really good at. Signing players to improve them, develop them, and sell them on at a huge profit.
Scott and Jones, who describe themselves as ‘Del Boy and Rodney’ due to their constant need to sell the club to potential signings who might have glitzier offers, don’t have hordes of analysts but sit there themselves with data software SkillCorner and StatsBomb. And it’s working.
A report by the CIES Football Observatory showed that Boro’s players have appreciated in value by nearly £150m over the last five years – the ninth-highest total in the country, ahead of Villa and Arsenal and just behind Chelsea.
They consistently make a profit on their stars. They signed Morgan Rogers for £1m in 2023 only to sell him to Villa for up to £17m seven months later. When he joined Chelsea this summer for £117m, they banked another £21m as a world-record sell-on fee.
Finn Azaz signed for £2m and was sold to Saints for £12m. Emmanuel Latte Lath, signed for £5m and flogged for £22.5m. Rav van den Berg, signed for less than £500k and sold for £11m.
The loan arrival of Brighton winger Amario Cozier-Duberry was described as the ‘icing on the cake’
Morgan Rogers (centre) was bought for £2m, sold for £17m seven months later and earned Boro another £21m in sell-on fees when he moved to Chelsea this summer
‘There is something special happening around this place,’ said one source. ‘On the field, off the field, recruitment. Everything is coming together’
Academy players have brought in huge profits, too. Like Hayden Hackney, who joined Everton in the summer for £16.5m, Djed Spence, who headed for Spurs in a move worth up to £20m and Marcus Tavernier, who signed for Bournemouth for £12m. As Del Boy would say, lovely jubbly.
The last time Boro lost in the play-off final, to Norwich in 2015, chairman and owner Steve Gibson gave a rousing speech to his troops to promise they would come back stronger, and they did. They went up automatically the following season. There is a similar feeling now around Teesside.
Club insiders talk of the strongest bond between the club and the community since the days of Juninho and Fabrizio Ravanelli in the 90s. Their attendances, in what is the year of their 150th anniversary, are their highest since they were last in the Premier League.
‘There is something special happening around this place,’ said one source. ‘On the field, off the field, recruitment. Everything is coming together.’
