Will Lankshear Makes Immediate Impact for Middlesbrough

Will Lankshear needed just 61 minutes in a Middlesbrough shirt to justify the hype. One clean swing of his boot, one ruthless volley, and Wrexham were out of the EFL Cup.

For Kim Hellberg, it confirmed what he already thought he knew.

The Boro head coach did not hold back in his verdict on the 21-year-old striker, signed from Tottenham Hotspur in a deal understood to be worth around £10 million as the Teessiders search for sharper teeth in attack.

“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,” Hellberg told BBC Radio Tees. “I'm not surprised he can do these goals.”

That conviction showed in the way Middlesbrough played. In a tight first-round tie, with little to separate two sides who finished just two places apart in the Championship last season, the game felt like it was waiting for someone to step forward. Lankshear did.

Just after the hour, the England Under-21 forward found his moment. The chance came, the technique took over. A crisp volley, guided and thumped in equal measure, and suddenly a cagey contest had its edge. Wrexham, stubborn and organised, were undone by a single, clinical action.

The goal was the headline, but at Boro, the story around Lankshear is already bigger than that.

Hellberg has walked into a club still nursing the scars of promotion heartache in May, reshaping a squad that has played some attractive football but lacked a ruthless streak in front of goal. Lankshear has been brought in to change that equation, to turn approach play into numbers on the board.

So far, the Swede likes everything he sees.

“The best thing with him is how he is as a person,” Hellberg 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.”

The message is clear. This is not a luxury signing or a speculative punt on potential. In Hellberg’s eyes, Lankshear is a centrepiece: a finisher with both feet, strong in the air, and, crucially, wired the right way for the demands of a long Championship season.

One volley in August will not define his time at Middlesbrough. But as debuts go, it felt like a statement – from the club, from the coach, and from a young striker already being talked about as the most natural finisher his manager has ever seen.