Kim Hellberg has praised his Middlesbrough squad for making one of the Championship's more impressive early-season starts, describing it as "unbelievably strong" given the upheaval that preceded it.

Boro sit second in the table after nine league matches, with only one defeat on their record. That sole loss came in a run that has included five fixtures against other clubs currently sitting inside the top nine, which lends the return a good deal of credibility beyond raw points.

"With everything that's gone on, what happened last season, all the rotation in the squad, it's been an unbelievably strong start from the players," Hellberg told BBC Radio Tees. "For that, they deserve a lot of credit."

A summer of arrivals and departures

The head coach's reference to "rotation in the squad" is not press-release understatement. Middlesbrough brought in 12 players across the summer while losing three significant figures in Hayden Hackney, Dael Fry and Morgan Whittaker. Any manager will tell you that absorbing that volume of change in a single window, while simultaneously trying to maintain a promotion challenge, is among the harder jobs in the Championship.

Among the arrivals is Will Lankshear, currently the division's joint top scorer. Hellberg has been careful not to build the team's identity around a single player, but the striker's contribution has given Boro an attacking reference point the squad lacked at points last term.

The most recent league result was a 1-0 win over Wolves on Saturday, a tight, low-scoring affair of the kind that title-challenging sides need to grind out when the performance is not at its peak. Hellberg, a Swede who has taken to the Championship's no-frills demands with some pragmatism, was quick to spread the praise across the group rather than single out individuals.

Keeping perspective on the table

For all the encouragement in those early numbers, Hellberg is not getting carried away with second place. The Championship table at this stage of the season has a habit of flattering the fortunate and punishing the complacent, and the Boro head coach appears well aware of that.

"The table is not that important but you look at the teams we've played and how they've started," he said. "We've played a lot of teams who've started the season and we've performed in a very good way with a lot of players. That's the main thing."

It is a sensible position. With the division's top nine already jostling for position, there will be plenty of movement in the months ahead. What Hellberg is building, he suggests, is squad depth and collective habit rather than a points cushion that could easily evaporate.

"My job is to keep working hard to get them better as we'll need them all through the season," he added.

Stoke test next up

The next examination arrives on Tuesday evening when Boro travel to Stoke City, who have assembled a six-game run of five wins and a draw to establish themselves as the division's current form side. The match kicks off at 20:00 BST and represents exactly the kind of mid-table collision the promotion race will be defined by come spring.

Boro come into it with more momentum than most would have predicted after the summer's disruption. Whether Hellberg can keep that going as the fixture list thickens is the real question, but on the early evidence his squad is adjusting faster than the scale of change might have suggested.

Last season ended in painful fashion: Middlesbrough came close to automatic promotion before being involved in a play-off process marred by the so-called Spygate affair. That experience, in both its hope and its bitterness, will have left a mark on those who remained. For the 12 new arrivals, earning the trust of a fanbase still processing that disappointment is a task in itself. So far, by most measures, they appear to be managing it.

Frequently asked

How has Middlesbrough started the Championship season?
Boro have lost only one of their opening nine league games and sit second in the Championship table, with results against several other top-nine clubs on their record.
Who is Will Lankshear and what has he done for Middlesbrough?
Will Lankshear is a striker signed by Middlesbrough in the summer and is currently the Championship's joint top scorer after the opening weeks of the season.
What happened to Middlesbrough in last season's play-offs?
Middlesbrough reached the play-offs last season after narrowly missing automatic promotion, but their campaign was overshadowed by the so-called Spygate affair and they ultimately did not go up.