Middlesbrough boss dismisses 'advantage' talk against Hull City
KIM HELLBERG has dismissed the idea that Middlesbrough have been handed a play-off final advantage by having extra training time to focus specifically on facing Hull City.
The pair will meet in Saturday's all-Yorkshire Championship final at Wembley after Southampton's appeal against the independent commission's bombshell decision to expel them from the showpiece was upheld late on Wednesday.
Saints were thrown out on Tuesday night - following "multiple breaches" of EFL regulations regarding the unauthorized filming and spying on opponents' training sessions - with semi-final opponents Boro placed into the final despite a 2-1 aggregate loss.
Until then, Hull were scheduled to play Southampton, with all their preparations geared towards facing them and not Boro, who would only face one team should they be reinstated to the final.
Hellberg stressed that fully-focused time on the training ground was impossible until clarification arrived regarding whether Boro's season would extend into an additional match - allied to the confirmed date. The Teessiders' fates remained uncertain until then.
Hellberg who gave his players last weekend off to mentally recharge following the second-leg result at St Marys - they were also off last Friday - said: "There have been a lot of emotions. It has been a crazy time.
"It has been back and forth, involving a lot of different emotions from losing the game to everything else.
"After the Southampton game away, with all the things that come with that, it was very tough.
"It’s been impossible to train (properly). We had a meeting with them after the weekend, to see where we were at, but it’s been very difficult.
"Of course, from when it was 100 per cent clear, we could start trying to focus on the game (from training on Thursday)."
Meanwhile, Hellberg admits to having sympathy with fans of Hull, Southampton and Boro after a chaotic build-up to the biggest one-off club game in world football - which is worth an estimated £205million to the victors.
It has been totally overshadowed by the Spygate 2.0 saga which has rocked the EFL since news first broke just over a fortnight ago.
It culminated in Saints being sensationally expelled from the final and being handed a four-point deduction in the Championship next season.
The Swede spoke of his disgust at the actions of Saints in the wake of the furore in a heartfelt press conference following the second leg at St Mary's.
This followed previous strong condemnatory comments after the first instalment at the Riverside Stadium.
On Saints' punishment, he said: "The punishment is not for me to decide and I was never thinking about the punishment when I was talking about things. I was talking about my emotions.
"That’s what I’ve done since I’ve arrived here – I’ve tried to be honest and open and not use the ‘no comment’ option or anything like that.
"Southampton is a big organisation with so many things that are involved in that. "Of course, I have a lot of sympathy for the supporters who have paid for tickets, thinking they would be going to Wembley.
"I have massive sympathy for those, and for some players who were not involved. There’s a lot of sympathy for different things. I’ve got sympathy for our fans and for Hull supporters in terms of not knowing when to play the game."
Meanwhile, Hellberg has confirmed that key midfielder and reigning Championship player of the season Hayden Hackney should be fit for the final, having trained on Thursday.
He has missed the club's last 10 games after sustaining a calf injury in mid-March.
Hellberg, who will be without influential forward Tommy Conway, said: "There's a lot of thinking and thoughts coming up to the game and try to find the best way with a lot of different things and Hayden is of course included in that puzzle."