Britt Assombalonga reveals the big impact Jonathan Woodgate is having behind the scenes at Middlesbrough

Britt Assombalonga’s brace helped secure Middlesbrough a 2-2 draw with QPR at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium on Saturday.
Britt AssombalongaBritt Assombalonga
Britt Assombalonga

The striker, who scored Boro’s first goals in four games, was happy with the performance but was disappointed to bring just one point back to Teesside.

“It was good to come back in the way we did, but if you speak to the boys, they’ll say we didn’t want to be leaving with a point, we wanted the three points,” he said.

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“I think we would have deserved the three points today, but it was just one of those games.

“It was an end-to-end game. QPR play some good football, but we set up in a way to try and stop them and we wanted to make sure we came straight out of the traps, which we did.

“We’ve been on a difficult run and we’ve come up against a good QPR team, and we’re leaving here with a point, disappointed we didn’t get all three.”

Assombalonga, who, before Saturday’s double hadn’t scored since August, revealed that he always believed he would be back scoring for Middlesbrough before too long.

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“This has happened before. It’s not a one-off thing, it happens for every striker. You just have to keep going.

“Eventually it’s going to click, and then you’ll go on a run of scoring again and everyone will forget about the time when you had a chance and missed.”

“I’ve got a good record, and that’s why you can’t dwell on the little droughts. You’ll keep having those droughts through your career, but you know that the storm is going to pass someday.”

Assombalonga also praised his manager and believes the squad are as strong as ever, despite a run of nine games without a league win.

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“He’s always positive. The manager is always positive. If we’re bad then we’re bad, and he lets us know. But when we’ve played well, like we did today, he praises us.

“He tells us to keep working hard, and I’m sure the next two weeks will be full of hard training sessions to make sure we’re ready for after the break.”