Kim Hellberg's Celtic approach hint and most exciting thing about Boro friendly
The friendly match at Celtic Park will come exactly four weeks ahead of Boro’s opening Championship clash at home to Lincoln City. They officially kick-off their campaign a week earlier at home to Wrexham in the Carabao Cup, however.
Boro are now into their second full week of pre-season training, where they’ve been preparing for Celtic, and the new campaign, on home turf at Rockliffe.
It follows last week’s warm-weather training camp in Portugal. They wrapped that trip up with a 2-2 draw with SC Farense, in which David Strelec scored both of the Boro goals.
It was a game in which the Boro boss used 20 outfield players, each of whom played 45 minutes each. But he hinted that will change on Saturday at Parkhead.
He told the club website: “The first game is more about getting 45 minutes into the legs of 20 players and preparing for the new season in that way. It’s not really what I would call a great game.
“I am looking forward to the Celtic game. That is more what I would call like a real game. And then, of course, the weeks that follow that. They will be important for us in every different aspect.
“We’re going to take a lot of fans up there with us, and that is why I think it will have that feel of a real game, compared to the one in Portugal. We’ll have a good week leading into that game, because we will need that.
“We need to train hard and help the players develop. I’m looking forward to the game, though. It will be fun to see all the supporters again.”
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As of Tuesday, Boro had sold a little over 5,000 tickets for the trip north of the border. With fans requiring physical tickets for the game, the deadline for postage has now passed.
But supporters have until 12pm on Thursday to purchase tickets that can be collected. None will be available from the ground on the day.
The game at Celtic will be one of only two public-facing freindlies that Boro play ahead of the new season, though more behind-closed-doors games like the SC Farense match are expected also.
As for pre-season in general, Hellberg is continuing to prepare his Boro squad for the new season, where he will hope to go one better than last term and win promotion to the Premier League.
Boro remain busy trying to strengthen that claim by adding to their squad in the transfer window, having so far added forwards Myles Peart-Harris and Kyle Joseph.
Until then, young players and others who maybe didn’t get as many opportunities last term after the Swede’s arrival are being given the chance to impress. And Hellberg is happy with how the opening fortnight back has gone.
“It’s been a good week,” Hellberg said of Portugal. “We had a lot of young players with us - a lot of good players to work with. In how all of the players have worked hard and what they’ve shown talent wise, I cannot be more satisfied.
“Of course, some players have left, some others have returned, and there will be some new faces too. We have five very important weeks now where we will work very, very hard and it will be very, very tough.
“I’m looking forward to it, because it will be very fun too. We’ve had a good start to the summer - a good chance for me to see a lot of the young players. They’ve done very well. Now, there’s an exciting five weeks ahead, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Middlesbrough are preparing for a big summer as they look to rebuild from the heartarche of missing out on promotion to the Premier League.
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