Kim Hellberg says Middlesbrough FC must get better at making 'big chances'
In football there are chances and big chances. Unfortunately for Middlesbrough, they are much better at creating the former than the latter.
Boro had much more of the ball than Hull City in Saturday's Championship play-off final, and made 13 chances with it.
But none were on target, whereas Hull's Oli McBurnie found the net in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
“In general the performance was quite good,” reflected Hellberg, pictured. “You know those type of games will be very tight.
“We defended really well but we are not good enough creating big chances from our chances. We have a lot of those moments where we're driving the game forward but don't use those chances well enough to create big chances. We had some, but we could get more. We defended in a brilliant way and we stopped them from creating almost anything except the header (Oli) McBurnie had (against the crossbar) in the first half.
“It seemed we were going into extra time with us driving the game to get a goal and they scored from a cross.
“That is football. It's a game of small margins, especially when it comes to a final. I tried to pick everyone up on the pitch as much as possible and talked to them in the locker room.
“There is a time to be devastated and disappointed for everyone.
“It's been a roller-coaster for everyone in the football club, a lot emotions back and forth.
“But we have to look at this game and say in many aspects we did a lot of good things over 90 minutes but they scored one and we scored nil.”
Like Hull's, Boro’s preparations for the £200m game were disrupted when Southampton were charged with spying on a Boro training session the night before the sides met in a play-off semi-final.
Saints won over two legs but were thrown out of the competition on Tuesday.
With an appeal the following day, Boro were not certain of taking their place, but still sold their full allocation of 36,000 tickets.
“They're absolutely amazing,” said Hellberg. “There was a lot of pride in Middlesbrough Football Club.
“How they have handled the situation, their respect and all those things, I think they have been brilliant in how they have handled the situation and to sell all those tickets in two days.
“It hurts a lot to not give them that celebration they deserve and that opportunity to be in the Premier League.”