Kim Hellberg turns the air blue with impassioned Boro message fans will love

While the Boro boss has, in general, been happy with the level of performances and fight from his players, they’ve gone five games without a win at such a pivotal stage of the season. The result was losing their control over their automatic promotion fate.

Hellberg is usually a modern coach who focuses more on performance and improvement than results. He’s spoken about that a lot in recent weeks.

But, setting his target for Saturday’s clash with Portsmouth - the first of five huge games for Boro - the Swede was clear in his appreciation of the results being all that matters now.

“Football is never as simple as that [win and momentum turns],” Hellberg said. “We're in that period of time, as we talked about, there's been so many possibilities to get that win, where I think the performances have been good enough to get them.

“But we haven't. And we cannot hide behind performance. So, for the moment, when we go to Saturday, it's all about winning the game. That's the most important thing, and that's what we're trying to do.

“We have performed in a good way, and kept doing that with different players out - quality players out. That’s despite not having the momentum of winning a game. We’ve kept playing good football, creating opportunities.

“We have to take belief from that, but, of course, Saturday is more about trying to get the win. I just want to go out on Saturday and win the f****** game!”

To do so, they’ll have to better a Portsmouth side who head to the Riverside with a big fight on their own hands. Without a win in eight games, they sit just one point above the relegation zone.

“Like all the teams in this league, it will be a challenge,” Hellberg insisted. “It's a tough league, and it's an important game for them. They’re coming into a tough spell where they play a lot of games in a short amount of time.

“I think they've done some very good performances and then they struggle sometimes like every team. They're a direct, physical, quite aggressive team that I think during a time were very good.

“They've been very brave in the way they want to attack games. We'll see how they do it on Saturday, but, in general, I think it's a good team.”

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