Marked for Dávid Strelec
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.90 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Darragh Lenihan: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Middlesbrough have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 3‑2 win over Portsmouth, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market2 Nov 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Aidan Morris has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Middlesbrough.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Radek Vítek
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market26 Oct 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Match24 Oct 2026
Sheffield Wednesday left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adilson Malanda, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and Middlesbrough are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Christopher Evans after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
George McCormick falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Market26 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Radek Vítek’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match3 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Middlesbrough have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Cristhian Mosquera was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Luke Woolston is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match3 Oct 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Dávid Strelec’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Middlesbrough.
Match3 Oct 2026
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 8.34 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Ricardo Pepi at his very best
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Middlesbrough.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Morgan Whittaker, and the manager let it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Middlesbrough, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Middlesbrough did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Ricardo Pepi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Middlesbrough.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ricardo Pepi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Christopher Evans, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Luke Ayling
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Middlesbrough training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George McCormick is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Aug 2026
Middlesbrough pay PSV $22.8M for a proper upgrade
PSV did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $22.8M for Ricardo Pepi, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Middlesbrough go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Middlesbrough have gone to Bradford City with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market24 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Radek Vítek was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Dávid Strelec scored one and made one — 7.94
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.94, and 2 involvements.
Match18 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Fee done, terms next for Ricardo Pepi
Middlesbrough and PSV have settled on $22.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No deal for Josh Sargent at that price
Middlesbrough offered $20.3M; Toronto FC said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leeds United have kept their man, and Middlesbrough go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Leeds United for Dávid Strelec was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Radek Vítek in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Middlesbrough this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Middlesbrough
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Darragh Lenihan has come up in conversations Middlesbrough were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Joshua Taylor is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$20.0M on the table at PSV. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$19.0M on the table at Toronto FC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Middlesbrough did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dávid Strelec and Middlesbrough agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tyrell Malacia and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Middlesbrough asked and Bournemouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market10 Aug 2026
CF Montreal are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Middlesbrough will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$13.2M on the table at Tottenham. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luke Ayling and Middlesbrough agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Radek Vítek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Leo Castledine and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and Middlesbrough are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Julio Soler is in the works
Middlesbrough have made the call to Bournemouth. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.