Middlesbrough FC v Norwich City: Kim Hellberg eyeing 'mini pre-season' - despite promising start
Kim Hellberg has spoken ahead of Middlesbrough’s meeting with Norwich City
It is often the sides who come stumbling out of the traps who are keen for the first international break to arrive.
The period provides clubs with an opportunity to catch their breath after an early flurry of fixtures, allowing those who have absorbed blows in the early rounds to tend to their bloody noses.
Middlesbrough have lost just one of their opening five Championship games, winning three, yet head coach Kim Hellberg is relishing the prospect of a let-up.
Middlesbrough boss looking forward to ‘mini pre-season’
“I think as a pre-season, this has been my most challenging pre-season ever in my 15 years,” he said, as reported by Teesside Live. “A lot of players coming in, which was the necessary thing to do.
“I think the transfer window was absolutely brilliant, but it also means a lot of change.
“We use this period to grow as much as possible and get as many points as possible, and then during the break we get that time of almost doing a mini pre-season.”
A total of 12 senior signings were made over a summer in which some key figures from the Middlesbrough spine sought pastures new.
Rival managers who have had considerably less backing may tut, but there has been a significant amount of change for Hellberg to reckon with.
Norwich City’s visit this afternoon will be the first of three games that will take Boro up to the break, with Millwall then due up at the Riverside before a trip to Birmingham City is made.
‘We will just get better’
“The group of players are absolutely brilliant,” said Hellberg. “How they want to work, it's brilliant.
“But it's difficult to get a player who has not even trained with a team, just to be ready to play 90 minutes. It doesn't work like that, and so that's the balance that is very, very tricky.
“We always knew with 12 new players in that it was always going to be like that, and that's why we talked also about this period up to the international break being a key thing for us.
“It’s keep building, and we have now three games in one week that await before the international break. The break is a bit longer, so that gives us some time to keep working with the players. So, we will just get better.”