Nine goals in 12 games. A 1-0 win at the Riverside against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday. And Middlesbrough sitting in the Championship's automatic promotion places. Will Lankshear has wasted very little time making his point.

The 21-year-old joined Boro from Tottenham Hotspur in the summer on a five-year contract in a deal that could rise to £20m, making him a potential club-record signing. The initial fee was reported at around £10m, with a further £10m tied to performance-related add-ons. At the time, it was a significant outlay for a player who had never started a senior Premier League match. Twelve games into the Championship season, it looks shrewder by the week.

The winner that said it all

Saturday's goal against Wolves was vintage Lankshear. Leaping to meet Tommy Conway's left-wing cross six yards out, he nodded home with the composure of someone who had been doing this for years. It was the kind of finish that does not happen by accident. It requires positioning, timing and the confidence to commit early, before the ball arrives.

"What people have been impressed with is his instinctive finishing," BBC Tees commentator Mark Drury told BBC Sport. "One touch, just being in the right place. It's simple but not a lot of people know how to be there at the right time."

Lankshear has now scored in all but one of Middlesbrough's home matches this season. That consistency, rather than any single moment, is what separates a promising loan spell from a genuine Championship-level striker.

What Boro needed, what they got

Middlesbrough's problem last season was not creativity. Manager Kim Hellberg built a side that manufactured chances in volume; the problem was converting them. The club missed out on promotion after scoring only once across three play-off matches against a side they had every reason to beat. That was a painful way to fall short.

Lankshear was recruited specifically to address that bluntness. Boro reportedly saw off competition from elsewhere in the Championship and from clubs in Europe to land him. At 6ft 2in, good in the air, composed with both feet and apparently comfortable playing as a lone target, he fits the profile Hellberg needed.

The comparison being drawn freely now is with Harry Kane, another tall English striker who came through at Spurs before developing his game in the Football League. Former Spurs goalkeeper Paul Robinson, speaking to BBC Sport, acknowledged both the career-path similarities and the physical resemblance. "Like Kane, he looks like a player who is developing a little later compared to others," Robinson said. The Kane comparison carries obvious caveats, but in terms of build and finishing instinct, the parallel is not absurd.

The Spurs angle, and why it belongs to Boro

Lankshear spent 2023-24 scoring 23 goals for Tottenham's under-23 side in Premier League 2 and made appearances in European competition, most notably scoring against Galatasaray in the Europa League before being sent off in the same match. Yet first-team league minutes did not follow, and in a summer of heavy spending at Spurs he was allowed to move on.

There is understandable frustration among sections of the Spurs support about the sale. "A lot of fans are wondering why he was sold," Ali Speechly, co-chair of the Women of the Lane supporters' group, told BBC Sport. The framing, though, is largely a matter of perspective. From a Middlesbrough point of view, this is simply what good recruitment looks like: identify a player not yet getting his chance at the level above, back your own environment to develop him, and pay a fee structured so the risk is spread across performance milestones.

Boro have a track record here. Morgan Rogers spent six months at the Riverside before Aston Villa came calling; what that exit felt like at the time and what Lankshear's arrival might represent in the longer run are two sides of the same coin.

Where it leaves Boro in the table

The win against Wolves extended Middlesbrough's foothold in the automatic promotion places. Three points against a fellow second-tier rival has a compounding effect this early in the season: it hurts the opposition's tally at the same time as it boosts your own. Lankshear's goals are not merely aesthetically pleasing; they are points on the board in a division where the difference between finishing second and finishing seventh can come down to a handful of moments exactly like Saturday's header.

Whether Boro can sustain this form across 46 games remains to be seen. But on current evidence, the striker question that plagued them in the play-offs last spring has a very credible answer.

Frequently asked

How many goals has Will Lankshear scored for Middlesbrough this season?
Lankshear has scored nine goals in 12 games for Middlesbrough across all competitions since joining from Tottenham Hotspur in the summer.
How much did Middlesbrough pay for Will Lankshear?
Boro signed Lankshear on a five-year deal in a transfer that could reach £20m in total. The initial fee was reported at around £10m, with a further £10m available in performance-related add-ons.
Are Middlesbrough in the promotion places in the Championship?
Yes. After beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 on Saturday, Middlesbrough are sitting in the automatic promotion places in the Championship table.