Exciting Middlesbrough will get even better as issues addressed

No Boro fan needs reminding but from February through to April, Kim Hellberg's side endured a rotten six-match winless run on home turf in which they scored only three goals and managed only three draws against struggling sides that should have been swatted aside.

Had Boro under Hellberg been sussed out? It felt that way. And yet how the tables have turned again on Teesside.

Boro's dramatic win over Norwich City on Saturday extended their unbeaten home stretch to seven games. They've won six of them, the only game they didn't being the play-off semi-final first leg against Southampton when the football on display in the first half was quite incredible but they somehow didn't make it count.

It's now nine points out of nine at the Riverside this season for Boro and nine goals scored in the process.

Are Boro the fully polished product? Absolutely not. They are still a work in progress, as Saturday proved when Hellberg's side let a two-goal lead slip and at one stage looked like they'd potentially lose the game to the impressive Canaries, only to snatch it in stoppage time through substitute Ashley Phillips.

But they're building from a position of strength. It's now three wins out of four - and those wins came against teams that are third, fifth and, though Norwich are now 11th, had won three from four prior to their visit to the Riverside and have been one of the Championship's best sides since the appointment of Philippe Clement last November.

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Boro have won four and lost just one of their six games and are a point off the top of the Championship with a game in hand. Again, not a bad place to be when the general consensus is that there's more to come.

Does Hellberg have to address the issues that led to Norwich slicing through Boro in the second half and fighting back from 3-1 down to level at 3-3? And the fact that Boro are still struggling to string together two equal halves? Of course he does. And he will.

But the positives and the excitement should outweigh any concerns.

In Will Lankshear, they have a striker who is making a matchwinning impact even when he doesn't score, teeing up Phillips in stoppage time. They've had eight goalscorers already this season. Seb Berhalter was brilliant, scoring twice but also delivering the superb free-kick that led to the winner. Tommy Conway, making his first start of the season, instantly proved again that Boro are a better team with him in it. And Amario Cozier-Duberry already looks like he could be a game-changer.

Myles Peart-Harris took to his Instagram on Saturday night and labelled Cozier-Duberry as "magic", accompanying the picture with a wand. It's safe to say the Brighton loanee has had an instant impact on his new teammates.

And to think this was Conway and Cozier-Duberry's first starts. They'll only get better.

Then there's the depth and the fact the bench on Saturday contained the likes of the fit-again Jeremy Sarmiento, new signing Rokas Pukstas, matchwinner Phillips and leading summer target Max Arfsten.

That's not to say the not so impressive elements of Saturday's display will be glossed over. Boro looked too open from the get-go, leading to Norwich's opener inside 60 seconds, and the manner in which the visitors scored their second half goals - finding and exploiting space behind the midfield on the turnover - is an area where Hellberg's side have looked vulnerable in the early weeks of the season.

But the head coach is confident he knows what went wrong.

"We have to all learn from this and be better at our game management," he said.

"We were too stressed to keep doing the right things that we opened the game up too much. They have four players forward, so we don’t need to do this. In the second half, we stress too much about playing and looking for a fourth goal instead of managing the game, keeping the ball in their half and making it difficult for them. We should kill the game off in that way.

"Instead, we try and force things and open the game up when those things don’t come off for us. Their second goal is exactly that - one pass attempting to set a player free, and then it’s 3-2 and that’s always going to make it nervous. For me, I need to better in helping the players understand what we need from the game now.

"I think that comes from being eager when you get on. Also, one thing we talk about a lot is how we spend a lot of money on different players. But you also have to be honest about where they played last season. Two of them played for Oxford who were relegated, two played for Bristol City, who were not even close to play-offs, Ash from Stoke, the Americans, one from Croatia. So many players that actually haven’t been in around the top positions before to be fair, and I think that's why one thing that I need to do much better is helping them to understand what is needed in the game, and that I didn't do good enough."

He continued: "I think you look at it as a tactical element, to understand that now is different. The game has changed. You don't need to try to take a 50/50 pass when we free one up because they leave four players up. You can just drive the ball down, play around their box, find that pass or find an extra pass.

"We should sit on the ball a little bit, have two extra passes, make them defend because then, instead of leaving four up, they have to go down and defend and that opens up that chance. The game management is a massive thing, and that is on me where I haven't done good enough to help them understand that. So 100 per cent on me, and then the character of the players won us the game.

"We just need to be a little bit more clever. It comes from a lot of energy, a lot of desire to score four, five or six. But we have to try and do that in the right way. We have to believe we will do that, but we cannot open up the game so much when they leave so many players up. We can drive them down, make them defend their own box. I understand they want to play that through ball, but because the space was enormous in the second half, we lose so many of those passes straight to them and then they go and we don't need to."

Hellberg is right to mention the character of his players. Boro trailed against Lincoln but found a way, let the lead slip against West Brom but recovered to win and then snatched the points against Norwich after the second half bodyblows.

Boro are building and winning.