Hellberg challenges ‘nervous’ Middlesbrough players after returning to winning ways

Hellberg challenges ‘nervous’ Middlesbrough players after returning to winning ways

Kim Hellberg has challenged his Middlesbrough players to build momentum after returning to winning ways against Sheffield Wednesday.

Morgan Whittaker’s goal gave Boro a 1-0 win over the bottom side, ending a seven-game winless run.

“Now we need to build the momentum again,” the Middlesbrough boss said. “And it’s not only us that needs to build that, it’s everyone together. You can see the whole stadium being nervous because of what has happened.

“Everyone is nervous at the end because that is a natural reaction. You need to try to win over that, and that’s why I’m very impressed by the players in the last 10 minutes, and how they battled through it in a very good way. We didn’t give away anything and took the game as it was. That was brilliant.

“It was still a game where we should have won it quite easily. We created quite a lot of chances, a lot more than them but it was not our best day, absolutely. That also comes with expectations again. We create chances to be ahead with more goals, but it’s always like that. We had a very short rest between the games and there were some leggy players, you could see that.

“Football is a mental game, which means that you just need to get that win. We’ve been, to be fair, outplaying most of the teams we play, created more than every team we played against.

“After recent results though, for us, it was just important to win. It was not pretty, especially not the last 10 minutes, but it was important to win and I’m very, very happy for that.

“That was the only thing it was about, to win. That is the only thing that is important in this game. You’ve seen how we played against Ipswich. Four, five of our best players away with injuries and we went there and should have won that game with a brilliant performance.”