Football Season Guide

Middlesbrough’s 2025/26 season is one that will certainly live in the memory but perhaps for mostly the wrong reasons! Periods of hope for supporters quickly turned sour both on and off the pitch. Boro flew out of the traps with five wins and a draw from their opening six games - the best start to a season in the club’s history, but the first sucker-punch was soon landed. Rob Edwards resigned as head coach after just 16 games in charge to take over at Premier League strugglers Wolves. The club took a gamble on young Swedish coach Kim Hellberg who had no experience of English football but proved to be a breath of fresh air. Middlesbrough became the most exciting attacking side in the Championship and at one point looked like favourites to win the title. A humbling defeat in a top-of-the-table against Coventry proved to be a turning point and the Hellberg honeymoon period turned into an end-of-season slog. Having spent over 200 days in the automatic promotion places, Boro ended up scrapping to salvage a play-off spot. The play-offs brought about one of the biggest stories of the season across the whole of English football. Middlesbrough were beaten on the pitch over two legs in the semi-finals by Southampton, but the revelation that their opponents had been spying on training sessions led to unprecedented repercussions. Saints became the first club to ever be expelled from the play-offs and Boro were given a second chance to make the Premier League in the final. Once again, hope led to despair at Wembley in a game that encapsulated all the flaws that had developed under Hellberg. Boro dominated possession but couldn’t score and were beaten by a stoppage-time winner. Injuries were a big problem for the Teesiders last season. Star midfielder Hayden Hackney was named Championship Player of the Season despite missing the entire run-in and he has now left for the Premier League. Dael Fry, Alan Browne and Sammy Silvera are also key contributors from last season who have departed. The club has spent big in the transfer market to bolster the squad. Midfield duo Sebastian Berhalter and Max Arfsten have arrived from MLS to help plug the sizeable gap left by Hackney. Boro fans will hope they can adapt to the league as well as fellow American midfielder Aidan Morris has. Myles Peart-Harris and Will Lankshear have been brought in to bolster the attack after standing out in a relegated Oxford side last season. Lankshear in particular will be tasked with the burden of becoming the classic centre-forward that this team desperately lacked last season.