Soccer
Kim Hellberg reveals Will Lankshear battled sickness to be Boro matchwinner
Middlesbrough boss Kim Hellberg revealed that match-winner Will Lankshear was sick ahead of the visit to QPR and almost did not start the game.
Lankshear’s seventh goal in as many matches – a close-range finish after being set up by Callum Brittain – was enough to secure the points for Boro.
But the striker, a revelation since his summer move from Tottenham, went off early in the second half.
“Will was a little bit sick in the night. He felt a bit better in the morning,” Hellberg explained.
“It was questionable if I could start him. I think you could see that his energy was a little bit lower.
“I always knew that the energy was going to run out. But in the six-yard box his movement is very good.”
Boro dominated the first half but it was a different story in the second. Rangers, who had taken 10 points from their first four games, put them under sustained pressure as they tried in vain to find an equaliser.
The visitors defended well – although they rode their luck when Harvey Vale’s 77th-minute strike crashed against the woodwork.
Hellberg said: “Over 90 minutes we showed absolutely everything that football is about, including all aspects of the game. It was important to see the game out.
“You come here to a team that have maybe started the season the best of all teams. If you look at the statistics, they have been very strong, and in the first half we gave them problems.
“Then in the last 20 minutes we had to defend in a very good way, so you could see everything that you want to see in a football team; good with the ball, good with transitions, and we can do different things.”
QPR boss Julien Stephan remained upbeat, insisting their second-half performance showed great progress from last season.
Rangers were hammered 4-0 on Boro’s previous visit to Loftus Road and look a much-improved side now.
“I think it was a top second half,” Frenchman Stephan declared.
“We just have to remind that in March when we played against them – it was not two years ago, it was just a few months ago – we lost 4-0 and we didn’t exist in that game. We were so far.
“This team (Boro) played in the final of the play-offs just three or four months ago, spent £50m in the transfer market, and we are now in the beginning of September, just the fifth game, and we are able to compete like this in the second half. What an improvement.
“We had good ideas but we didn’t do well enough with the ball and we didn’t have enough tempo (in the first half).
“It was a big change between the first half and the second. We won most of the duels, but the big difference was the quality with the ball and the quality of the passes.
“I think we are very close to competing with this kind of team. We have reduced a lot the gap between them and us in a short time.
“I think we have the quality to compete against this kind of team and I’m not sure a lot of teams are able to push them like this.
“We created enough chances in the second half to score a minimum of one.”
