Middlesbrough players appear to be hitting form at the perfect time
Tommy Conway of Middlesbrough celebrates scoring their fifth goal(Image: Richard Lee/Shutterstock)
Kim Hellberg believes Middlesbrough have found their ‘restart’ after a recent bad run of form, and is delighted to see his three key forward players at the heart of it.
Boro recently went on a seven match winless run in a period in which their lack of ruthlessness in the final third proved costly. But in beating Watford 5-1 at the Riverside, Boro not only kept promotion dreams alive, they cemented their return to form too.
Now unbeaten in three, they’ve scored eight goals in that time – all eight of which have been scored by Morgan Whittaker, Tommy Conway and David Strelec.
While that means Boro have taken their fight for automatic promotion to the final week of the season, it still appears more likely that Hellberg’s side will get their promotion opportunity via the play-offs. And with that in mind, the forward trio’s return to form could not be better timed.
Hellberg said: “You can see how much Morgan means for this team in terms of scoring goals. He is a natural goalscorer, quick on his feet. You can see David increasing in his confidence and quality all the time. He’s very good at linking up the game.
“Then Tommy has that real energy, I think he did unbelievably as a substitute. It was great to see all three of them playing the way they did, and that could be really important for what is to come – Wrexham first and then probably some more games after that, which will be very important ones.
“We will see what happens on Tuesday, but we have done what we could and I am very happy with the week we have had. We talked about a restart, and we have taken seven points from three games, scored a lot of goals and competed in a very good way in different phases of the game.”
Of the three, Whittaker has certainly had the biggest impact. He missed five of Boro’s seven games during their winless run recently, and only played a minute of the last of that run at Ipswich Town.
Returning to start the last two, Boro have won both with him back in the side. And he’s had a major role to play in both, scoring the winning goal against Sheffield Wednesday, and then scoring two and assisting another to earn man of the match against Watford.
“I know how good he is,” Hellberg said after Watford. “We missed him. You could see how much he had improved before he got his injury, both in terms of his attacking and how defends. He is a very good offensive player, but he is also very good defensively in terms of all those things we need from our attacking players.
“He has taken big steps on that during the season. He is adding lots of qualities to his game. He is scoring goals and adding that to the way he is playing defensively. It is different to what he was doing in the games I was watching at the start of the season – he has improved so much. When he can do that, adding to the quality he has, then I have an unbelievable offensive player in him.”
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