Middlesbrough boss wants to strike the right balance in promotion bid
Middlesbrough will face Championship rivals Birmingham City on Monday night.
Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg has admitted he is trying to find the right balance as his side look to put the finishing touches to their push for promotion into the Premier League.
As it stands ahead of Monday night’s tough-looking visit to a Birmingham City side still in with a chance of securing a top six spot, Boro are sitting eight points adrift of current Championship leaders Coventry City and now have just a one-point advantage on third placed Millwall following their weekend win at Preston North End. Despite taking just two points from their last three games and being held to frustrating home draws by struggling Oxford United and Leicester City, Hellberg’s men are still well placed in their attempts to end Boro’s nine-year absence from the top flight of English football.
By his own admission, the Swede is working with a relatively small squad at the Riverside Stadium and he is now facing some difficult decisions as Monday’s trip to Birmingham City kickstarts a run of 12 games in the space of just 61 days. The intensity of those fixtures will only increase as the climax of the race for promotion into the Premier League approaches and Hellberg has stressed he will have to manage the levels of his players throughout that time.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, the Boro boss said: “That’s the thing I’m trying to balance. This week, we had the opportunity to give them two days off instead of training, so now they’ve been off a little bit more. That’s the balance. When can you give them time to be off? When can you give them time to rest their head? Because I think that’s also important. We could make them still come in and do a lighter session, but you still have to come in, you still have to change etc. Sometimes it’s good to change the environment.
“I believe that when you’re here, you do absolutely everything, you push the days as much as you can. That means it’s important to also try to give them as much space and time away from here as possible when you have the opportunity. I think that’s a good balance to try to work with.”
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