Hellberg happy with strong start after tough summer

Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg is happy to lavish praise on his players as they sit second in the Championship following the 1-0 win over Wolves on Saturday.

Having come close to promotion last season in both the automatic spots and then twice in the play-offs after the Spygate affair, Boro have had to go again.

They have brought in 12 players led by the Championship's joint top-scorer Will Lankshear but also had to content with significant exits in Hayden Hackney, Dael Fry and Morgan Whittaker, so there is a different feel to the squad.

"With everything that's gone on, what happened last season, all the rotation in the squad, it's been an unbelievably strong start from the players," the Swede told BBC Radio Tees.

"For that, they deserve a lot of credit."

Boro have lost only one of their opening nine league games, in a run of fixtures that has included matches against five of the current top nine.

They have another on Tuesday evening with a trip to the Championship's form side in Stoke City (20:00 BST), who have won five and drawn one of their last six.

Hellberg is not reading too much into where Boro are sitting right now but more in how they have performed in the opening weeks.

"The table is not that important but you look at the teams we've played and how they've started," he said.

"We've played a lot of teams who've started the season and we've performed in a very good way with a lot of players. That's the main thing.

"My job is to keep working hard to get them better as we'll need them all through the season."