Kim Hellberg’s Middlesbrough ‘responsibility’ with a quick response needed at Swansea City.

Middlesbrough must return to winning ways as they travel to South Wales.
Kim Hellberg says his main task over the Easter weekend was to raise his players and give them energy, after admitting the Middlesbrough dressing room was down after the defeat to Millwall.

Boro fell out of the Championship’s automatic promotion places for the first time since their stunning January 4 victory over Southampton put them second.
At such a critical juncture of the season, Boro has only won two of their last nine games. Millwall’s late Riverside triumph on Good Friday propelled the promotion rivals over Hellberg’s side in the rankings.

With only six games remaining, Boro cannot afford to lose any more points if they are to beat Millwall and Ipswich Town to automatic promotion.

But, with confidence low in the Boro dressing room, Hellberg admitted after the Millwall game that he needed to rapidly recover from the loss and supply his team with the energy to go again.

Hellberg stated: “It is my obligation [to lift the players]. It’s all about how I see things. It’s all about how I help them. And that is the major message.

“It’s my job to try to do it better because they are giving everything they can for this shirt and for the club. I think they are doing unbelievable work on the football pitch.

“I see a team that battles, runs, and plays football like no one else, creating numerous opportunities while conceding nearly nothing. So it is up to me to help them better; it is my responsibility.

As is customary throughout the Easter weekend, there was no pre-match press conference for this Easter Monday game. Instead, Hellberg responded immediately following Millwall’s dismal defeat, which he termed as heartbreaking.

Trying to be a little more contemplative in appraising Boro’s alternatives, the Boro head coach continued: “There are things you cannot control, and for the time being, it appears like a higher power is testing us in a variety of ways.

“But you’ve got to be strong through it. That’s what it’s about. It will never be easy to achieve your goals or go wherever you want in life.

“Whatever it is – whether it’s work or being a single mother of two children – you have to fight till the end if you want to succeed at anything. And that’s what we’ll have to do. We have to struggle through this one and hopefully finish up where we want to be.
Hellberg will face the squad he was believed to be interested in prior to joining Boro.

According to reports at the time, the Swede was already in the UK to negotiate with the South Wales club when Rob Edwards departed Boro and promptly hijacked the agreement to hire the highly regarded young coach.

However, he refused to be drawn on it ahead of Monday’s game, saying, “Not close. I’m where I want to be, and I’m going to battle for a chance to play against Swansea. I don’t have to go down that route.

“There’s no reason to. Swansea have a fantastic manager; he has done an excellent job. We’ve seen them a lot because we intend to play them. So this is a pretty solid team with a lot of good players, including several Swedish players. We’re looking forward to the game.

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