“I THINK I know what sort of reception I’m going to get” was how Britt Assombalonga described how he felt his first return to the City Ground, Nottingham, as a Middlesbrough player will go this weekend.

There may well be those fans who appreciate what he did for the club during his three years there, particularly the last two of the 30 goals he scored for them to prevent Forest from dropping out of the Championship and into League One last May.

But there are others, and plenty of them, annoyed by the manner of his departure. Forest claim they made every effort to keep him, but Assombalonga was set on a move to Teesside after Middlesbrough triggered a clause in his contract.

Make no mistake about it, the £15m is a hefty bit of business for Nottingham Forest and has helped Mark Warburton carry out his own work in the transfer market. A player of Assombalonga’s quality and proven record in the second tier, though, is difficult to replace.

That is why Forest fans would have preferred him to stay, and even the owner and Warburton did their bit to persuade him to. The reality is Assombalonga will be lining up today in a Middlesbrough shirt, aiming to score in front of the Trent End where he was adored for a period – and that in itself is likely to make for a tasty atmosphere.

“I don’t think the reception will be pleasant!”said Assombalonga, with a little smile that rose across his face. “It’s one of those things. You have to get on with it.

“I know I have moved to another Championship club but it’s bound to be a love-hate relationship now, so there’s nothing I can do about it. We will see what happens.”

Assombalonga averaged almost a goal every other game when he was at Forest; at a time when the club struggled in the wrong half of the division and he certainly paid back the £5.5m record fee they paid Peterborough for him in August 2014.

That deal eclipsed the previous high at the City Ground of £4.5m paid out on Pierre van Hooijdonk an incredible 17 years earlier. His time is likely to have been even more impressive had he not spent almost a year out due to a knee injury sustained in February 2015.

It was a sign of his talent then that Peterborough raked in such a sizeable fee just a year after paying a little over £1m to Watford for him and seeing him score 23 in 43 league appearances. They had also tracked him during his spells on loan with Braintree and Southend.

Whenever he plays he tends to impress because of his powerful, strong-running style of play – something Middlesbrough fans have already seen in his first three matches. That is likely to matter little when he walks out on to the City Ground pitch in a Boro shirt today.

He said: “It will be strange going back so soon to play in front of the Forest fans again and against the team I was part of. You have to just suck it up and move forward.

“I know I did reasonably well there, but I probably know what is going to happen when I go out on to the pitch wearing a different shirt. It’s one of those things and you just have to live with things like that in football. That’s how I will see it. I just felt it was the right time to move on and test myself somewhere else.”

That desire to test himself somewhere else is what Forest legend Garry Birtles suggested this week will have left a “bitter taste in the mouths of some fans”. He went on to claim, Forest defenders Joe Worrall and Matt Mills will know exactly how to deal with him.

What will not have helped their cause is seeing Assombalonga get off the mark on Tuesday night against Burton. The 24-year-old claims not to have been bothered by his lack of goals since arriving, but to have found the net for the first time for Middlesbrough will be a weight off his mind regardless.

Zaire-born Assombalonga, who qualifies to play for England and Congo despite a few call-ups for the latter, said: “I knew I had to shoot first time when the ball got rolled in front of me against Burton, I had a similar one in the first game at Wolves and Patrick took it off me!

“It never concerns me if I go a couple of games without scoring because I know I will score goals – and they have, so that’s nice.”

Two goals in three league appearances for Middlesbrough is a decent enough way to start life at the Riverside. Having collected six points from the first nine available – after back-to-back home wins – the determination from within now is to keep that form up.

Forest also have the same record, but the excitement around Teesside centres on the attacking options at Garry Monk’s disposal. Alongside Assombalonga in the last two matches has been Patrick Bamford, another City Ground old boy, and Rudy Gestede.

Bamford and Gestede cost Middlesbrough more than £13m last January and Monk has since added Assombalonga (£15m), Ashley Fletcher (£6.5m) and Martin Braithwaite (£9m) to the squad’s forward thinking. There is still likely to be another forward arriving soon.

“It’s a blessing to have so much attacking quality on the pitch at the same time, never mind the squad. It’s nice to see us all believe in each other too and long may that continue,” said Assombalonga.

“The system we play with allows you to attack. It lets you get into the different positions, move around, but mainly just to attack in whatever direction you want. That’s what we try to do. He wants us to be fluid up there and that’s a benefit to us all when we play.”

Assombalonga has started more centrally of the three in the last two games but that has not lasted long. He has the freedom to roam, just as Gestede and Bamford have done too. That has caused problems for the visiting defences.

There are teething problems with the new system being implemented by Monk. The players are enjoying it and they are confident the goals will flow as Middlesbroughh look to stay in the promotion mix.

Assombalonga said: “What’s nice is that strikers are normally pigeon-holed into certain roles, positions, but the manager gives us all the confidence up there to move around like we want to in the final third.

“We have a way we need to play in the first third and the second third, when it gets to the final third we have to create some magic somehow.

“We are all going to really go hard to attack this Championship. With all the players we have got, not just the forwards, we have a strong core and I think we will do well.”

It is safe to assume the club record buy will want to finish as Middlesbrough’s leading scorer this season – even if it is just on the training ground at Rockliffe Park!

“We have little things going on in training about who does the best but not in terms of who has the most goals in matches,” said Assombalonga. “At the end of the day we want to be a team and if someone is in a better position then you pass it to them to score, that’s the mentality we want to create.

“We want to win as a team but on the training pitch we want to win as individuals! I would like to score more goals. I never set myself any targets I just try to keep going. I am confident out there anyway, the manager has given me the confidence to go out and feel like I can do that too.”

If Middlesbrough can hit the international break with two more positive results against Forest and then Preston – either side of the Carabao Cup tie with Scunthorpe – then Monk and his new-look squad can be satisfied with the progress made in such a short space of time.

Assombalonga said: “It was a good performance on Tuesday against Burton but I still think we could have done better. We should have finished it off. It’s one of those things. We got the win, the clean sheets and the goals.

“As every game comes along we will get better because we will know each other more. We wanted to win the first game of the season, but we have followed that up with back-to-back wins.

“We don’t want to stop there, we need those wins to continue. We will be in shape for the next few games – and that starts at the City Ground on Saturday!”