Jeremy Sarmiento is pushing for his first Middlesbrough start after a bright cameo at Coventry City
Jeremy Sarmiento of Middlesbrough(Image: Richard Lee/Shutterstock)
Kim Hellberg says a number of factors come into consideration when he picks his Middlesbrough team – hinting that he won’t be making any reactionary decisions after Monday’s defeat at Coventry City.
Hellberg has named an unchanged side for Boro’s last three games. But there’s been plenty of talk about whether he makes any changes or not this afternoon, as they look to rebound to that Coventry loss against 23rd-placed Oxford United.
While Hellberg says any decisions would not simply be a reaction to how certain individuals performed in the Coventry loss, he did not rule out changes against Oxford – as he explained what he considers when it comes to the starting 11 he picks for each game.
The Boro boss said: “It’s many factors, it’s no one thing. It’s the training week, that’s one thing. It’s the positions the players are going to mainly end up in; the qualities the players have in terms of the spaces it’s going to end up in; what I think will be important in the game; what qualities will be important in the game.
“Also, the structure offensively and defensively goes into that as well. The opposition too, and then, of course, the quality of the players, and how they’ve played. So it’s a lot of different things you consider for the decision.
“You also have to plan ahead a little bit. You have to have maybe more games than one in your head – depending on what they are coming back from: can they start two games in four days? Is that possible? So it’s a lot of different things where you need to try to sometimes guess what is the right decision.”
Hinting he won’t be making any changes based purely on performances on Monday, he added: “That’s the tricky part because after the game sometimes it’s very easy for people. But, before the game is quite tough!”
As Hellberg ponders his Boro team for the clash with Oxford at the Riverside, a bigger consideration than the Coventry game is likely to be the fact that Boro play Leicester next Tuesday evening, and then travel to Birmingham City the following Monday.
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Acknowledging that energy levels are so important to the way he wants his side to play, he continued: “That’s the balance, and recently, it’s been a long time between the games up to the Coventry game.
“It’s been almost nine and seven and that bit in between, and now it becomes a shorter amount of days in between the games, which means that we need to use the squad in a little bit of a different way.
“That will be important to keep the energy up, to give players the opportunity to balance the energy. It will be about where you can find the best team and the best players for the next game we’re going to play.
“That will be a balance in this type of period with seven games up to the international break, two games a week, which means that that will be a type of balance and trying to find the right way. That’s my job and I will try to find the best way.”
One player who is pushing for a start this weekend is Jeremy Sarmiento. The January signing enjoyed his longest period on the pitch in a Boro shirt to date at Coventry, and was lively in his cameo, almost helping Boro to turn the game around.
Having played such little football in the first half of the season while on loan at Cremonese, the first few weeks of his time on Teesside have been focused on getting him up to speed. But admitting his Coventry cameo suggests he’s ‘ahead’ of where they thought, the Ecuador international could be in line for his first start.
“He’s been given the time that he needed from not playing so much football,” Hellberg said. “His 25 minutes were very, very good. Which means that I think he’s further ahead, and he’s getting there. Then we see.
“We will need him. It’s 14 games left and we will need him. He has to play a big part in this like many of the other people, and he’s getting closer to being ready to start here.”
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