Middlesbrough's Kim Hellberg Prepares for Norwich Clash
Kim Hellberg can finally stop living out of a suitcase.
After five away games in six and a draining week on the road capped by a Carabao Cup exit at Crystal Palace, the Middlesbrough head coach sounds like a man who has been counting down the days to Saturday. Back to the Riverside. Back to noise, familiarity and a crowd he believes is starting to reshape the club’s ceiling.
Norwich are the visitors, and Hellberg is under no illusion about the scale of the task. But he wants Teesside to feel it too.
Back to the Riverside, back to the bond
The Swede has spent the early weeks of the season shuttling between coaches, hotels and opposition grounds. The return home comes with a clear demand: recreate the fury and electricity of Norwich’s last trip to the Riverside.
That night, Hayden Hackney’s winner dragged Boro joint top of the Championship and turned the closing stages into chaos. Hellberg hasn’t forgotten.
“I remember that game last season, it was a brilliant atmosphere and I remember the last five minutes were absolutely crazy,” he told BBC Radio Tees. Those final moments, that surge from the stands, have become a reference point for what he wants this side – and this stadium – to be.
He talks about a club that has come through the turbulence of last season hardened, not scarred. Players, coaches, supporters. One group, he insists, now driving each other to a “higher level”. Every home game so far, in his eyes, has felt like proof.
So he wants more of it. Louder, sharper, more hostile. Norwich, he keeps repeating, are “a very good side”. To beat them, he believes, Boro will need every decibel.
“We need the supporters being on our side and doing everything they can to help get us over the line against a very good opposition,” he said. It is less a plea, more a challenge.
Respect for Clement, respect for Norwich
Hellberg’s admiration for Philippe Clement is obvious. He calls the Norwich boss “a top coach”, and the evidence is there: Clement walked into a relegation-threatened dressing room last season and dragged it away from trouble, then built on it.
“Philippe Clement has done a brilliant job, he's a very good coach, builds a strong and well-coached team. He turned the season around for Norwich last year - they were in danger when he arrived and have built through that.”
Norwich arrive on Teesside having shaken off a shaky start and begun to stack wins. They will not come to sit in and spoil. Hellberg expects a football match, not a grind.
“I think it is going to be a very good football game, two good teams against each other, brilliant kick-off time on a Saturday and we are looking forward to it.”
Two coaches who value structure. Two teams trying to play. One ground that, when it catches fire, can tilt games.
Lankshear’s impact and a growing culture
If the Riverside has been the stage, Will Lankshear has been one of the leading actors.
The 21-year-old missed out on the Championship Player of the Month award on Friday, but his numbers since arriving from Tottenham in the summer speak loudly enough: seven goals in eight games. That is not a young forward easing his way in. That is a young forward grabbing his chance.
Hellberg’s praise, though, runs beyond the penalty area.
“I think he has done brilliantly, he's a good boy and has come into the team perfectly. He works very hard on and off the pitch and that's the culture we are trying to create here.”
That word – culture – keeps surfacing when Hellberg talks about his squad. He has “seen a massive difference in the group” from his first day to now. Players pushing each other, looking after each other, competing “in a brilliant way” to help Middlesbrough win games.
Lankshear is one of many, he insists, but it helps when one of them cannot stop scoring.
The away miles are banked. The early-season bruises too. Now comes a Saturday at the Riverside, a rising Norwich, and a manager who wants his team and his crowd to show just how far they have really come.
