Kim Hellberg: I’ll remember opening win for rest of my life

Kim Hellberg said he will remember his first game in charge of Middlesbrough for the rest of his life after his side battled back from behind to beat Derby 2-1 at the Riverside.

Hellberg got off to the worst possible start as head coach when Derby took the lead through Patrick Agyemang inside 90 seconds.

But Boro delivered a stirring second-half fightback and climbed back into the automatic promotion places in the Championship thanks to late goals from Matt Targett and Morgan Whittaker.

“The whole day has been crazy,” said Hellberg, 37, who left Swedish club Hammarby to replace Rob Edwards at the Riverside.

“It’s a very proud moment. I’m happy. There’s a lot of feelings and I’m very proud of the lads and how they performed.

“It’s a big day. I will remember this for the rest of my life.”

Boro looked shaky in defence in the early stages after their nightmare start but recovered well, and at the break a confident Hellberg promised the players the goals would come.

“At half-time I told the players, ‘I think we’re going to turn this one around’,” he said.

“I did believe they would. You come in as a new manager and they want to do everything for you.

“I told them, ‘Just take a breath. You will turn this around. You have so much good quality’.

“I believed if we could play freely through the structure, and keep those small changes we made to open up even more, and also learn from the first half, we could turn it around.

“Then of course you need top-quality things to do it. I think both goals are high-quality goals.”

Derby dropped to 10th in the Championship with defeat but it is just two losses in eight games for the Rams and boss John Eustace believes his side are heading in the right direction.

He said: “I’m ever so proud of the group. The way we went about our business was really good. We just ran out of legs in the second half.

“It’s been a really difficult week for us so to come here against a really good team, fantastic squad of players, second in the league, new manager, it’s obviously a big game for them.

“I thought we were excellent in the first half and just ran out of steam in the second half. We didn’t look after the ball well enough.

“They had lots of possession but didn’t really give Jacob [Zetterstrom, Derby keeper] any problems, so to concede from two set-pieces is really disappointing.

“The lads are gutted in there but it’s all part of our journey and process. The way we went about our business is really pleasing for me. We’re growing and we’re in a good position.”