Kim Hellberg previews Middlesbrough’s clash with Preston North End
Hayden Hackney and Tommy Conway celebrate(Image: MI News/NurPhoto)
Kim Hellberg has told his Middlesbrough players they need to bring the energy on Saturday against Preston North End, with the Boro boss wary of the quick turnaround between games.
Whereas Preston were beaten comfortably by Hull City on Tuesday evening, Boro’s game away at Stoke came 24 hours later. It makes the lunchtime kick-off against the Lilywhites far from ideal, with Boro not getting back to Teesside until the early hours of Thursday morning.
But at this stage of the season, Boro cannot afford to have too many days off, as they look to consolidate their position in the Championship automatic promotion places. And with that in mind, Hellberg is demanding his players go again at their usual high levels as they look to win a fourth straight league game.
The Boro boss said: “Three in a row is difficult – it’s difficult anywhere you are. Two away games and one home. To bring those performances, scoring a lot of goals – nine goals in three games – that’s good.
“We try to keep doing that and keep improving. It’s important to understand that it’s always a challenge when you play two away games, you play Wednesday away from home, late, and then you play early Saturday morning.
“That is not a lot of hours in between to get any rest in. So we talked about that, but it cannot be an excuse for us to not bring the best of our energy; it cannot be an excuse for someone to not be ready to play.
“We need to bring all the energy in the world to perform. And that demands even more from us when that amount of time and how we and I balance the squad in playing over 90 minutes against a very tough opponent will be key.”
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With energy the key demand of the Boro boss heading into the game against a Preston side who are likely to be structured and aiming to be hard to break down, Hellberg was asked if it made for thoughts around freshening his starting XI up somewhat.
“I think you can do it in different ways,” he responded. “We have some players coming back, but they’re maybe not ready to start. So then it’s: how can you use them in the game?
“It becomes a game management thing because we will need energy over 95 minutes in a different way, than playing with the same team over 95 minutes. You can do it by freshening up some players, maybe, you can have substitutions that you think ‘this will be a good substitution around 60 minutes.’
“It’s different ways of using a tactical plan. Of course, we know football can always change. But you can have a plan of how we can do it if everything goes well. Then you need to adapt to what’s happening on the pitch.
“For example, it was not the plan to swap two players at half-time against Stoke, but maybe sometimes the game takes you to a place where you need to act.
“But you can have a plan, and I think it’s important to have that plan, in terms of using energy to get the best out of the squad over 95 minutes. That could be some new players starting or it could be some players dividing a game.”
As for Preston, they head to the Riverside in contrasting form to Boro, with Paul Heckingbottom’s side without a win in three. But still sitting sixth in the table, it says a lot about the season they’re having, beyond pre-season expectations.
Hellberg previewed: “It was a hard result [against Hull]. I watched that game. But I think Preston’s been a good team over the whole season, pressing man-for-man, strong on set pieces, difficult team to get momentum against because they’re very aggressive in their front press and back that up with the whole team.
“They’ve done very good things. Every game is a challenge in this league. I’ve noticed that and it gives you different types of challenges all the time. It could be a good thing with a team not having won in a while, but you also know that there is a good team behind them.
“It could also give them more energy to perform better so you can always pick either side of those depending on how you want to look at it. But I think Preston is a good team, they are an aggressive team and they will make it a game that challenges us in a way that is different from West Brom and Stoke and Southampton
“I’m looking forward to that challenge and hopefully we can bring all the energy we have. That’s the most important thing.”
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