Will Lankshear's Impact at Middlesbrough: A Promising Start

Will Lankshear needed only an hour in Middlesbrough colours to explain exactly why the club were prepared to spend big – and why his new head coach is already running out of superlatives.

On a tight EFL Cup first-round night against Wrexham, with the game locked and anxious, the 21-year-old stepped into a dropping ball in the 61st minute and thrashed home a volley that oozed certainty. One clean swing, one ruthless finish, and Boro were through.

For Kim Hellberg, it simply confirmed what he had already seen behind closed doors.

“I've seen the trainings and he's the best finisher I've ever seen in terms of left foot, right foot, how hard he shoots, his headers,” the Middlesbrough head coach told BBC Radio Tees, barely disguising his delight. “I'm not surprised he can do these goals.”

That is no small claim. Hellberg has not been in the job long, but he has watched enough forwards to know when one is different. Lankshear, signed from Tottenham Hotspur this summer in a deal initially thought to be worth £10 million, has arrived on Teesside with a reputation as a penalty-box predator and a hunger for a proper first-team stage.

He has wasted no time justifying the investment.

The tie itself was as tight as the league table suggested it might be. These two sides were separated by only two places in the Championship last season, and it showed in the margins: half-chances, duels, the odd flash of quality, but little to choose between them. The kind of game that usually needs a moment, not a pattern, to decide it.

Lankshear provided it.

His movement had already hinted at danger, drifting off shoulders, attacking crosses, refusing to stand still. When the ball sat up for him just after the hour, there was no hesitation, no extra touch, just the instinct of a striker who trusts his technique. The volley was struck with the kind of violence and control that turns a chance into a certainty.

The pressure finally told, and Wrexham never really recovered.

For Middlesbrough, still nursing the scars of promotion heartache in May and reshaping the squad with new faces, this is exactly the sort of jolt they wanted from their summer business: a young, hungry forward who can turn careful approach play into something far more tangible.

Yet for Hellberg, the story is not just about the goal or even the finishing.

“The best thing with him is how he is as a person,” the Swede said. “How hard he works, how much he wants to learn, how quick he is to adapt. That's been absolutely brilliant.

“Add on to that, the quality he has, he's an unbelievable player and he's just going to get better.”

That last line will echo around the Riverside. Middlesbrough have long prided themselves on developing talent, but they have also craved a ruthless edge in the box to match their build-up play. In Lankshear, they believe they have found a forward who can grow with the club and drag them over tight lines like this one.

One game, one goal, one emphatic statement. If this is the starting point, what does the finished article look like?