Kim Hellberg has made clear that Middlesbrough will not soften their attacking approach this season, regardless of the defensive vulnerabilities that come with it. The head coach spoke to BBC Radio Tees ahead of Friday's trip to Bolton Wanderers, and his message was unambiguous: Boro are built to score, and that is not changing.

Third in the table, and climbing

After 11 Championship games, Middlesbrough sit third in the division with 22 goals scored, a total only bettered by one other club in English football at this stage of the season. The picture at the back is less comfortable: Boro have kept just two clean sheets, and their last six league matches have produced 25 goals in total, 11 of them conceded.

Hellberg, who has been in charge for 43 Championship matches and seen his side win 20 of them, is not treating those defensive numbers as a problem that demands a tactical rethink. He frames them instead as the cost of doing business at the front end, and argues the overall balance remains in Boro's favour.

"You have to pick in football what you want to be and we want to be an offensive team," he told Radio Tees. "That's what we believe in. That's taken us from where we were almost a year ago, which was almost totally different to how we played football, to being the best team in the league at controlling games."

The numbers behind the style

The shot data makes the case for Hellberg's approach more clearly than any press-release language could. In those six recent matches, Middlesbrough attempted nearly twice as many shots as their opponents. Against Cardiff City alone, they registered 36 attempts, a figure that belongs more comfortably in a training-ground drill than a competitive Championship fixture.

The sting in that stat is that both the Cardiff match and the meeting with Millwall ended in draws, with Boro having to recover from two-goal deficits on each occasion at the Riverside. Goals given away at that rate have a habit of costing points over a 46-game season, and supporters will be aware that automatic promotion places are decided by thin margins.

Hellberg, however, points to trajectory rather than individual results. "We create a lot of chances, we concede very few," he said, a claim that sits in some tension with recent evidence but reflects where he believes the team's underlying numbers are heading. "From where we started, that's a massive journey."

A win at Bolton would put Boro top

Friday's fixture in Lancashire offers the clearest possible incentive for the philosophy to keep paying off. A victory at Bolton Wanderers would lift Middlesbrough to the top of the Championship table after just 12 games. That context makes Hellberg's public confidence easier to read: a manager who goes into a potential top-of-the-table clash questioning his own methods is rarely persuasive in the dressing room.

"We're very different to a lot of teams in how we approach games, how we take them on and how brave we are," he said. "We win more than we lose because of that."

The supporters who packed the Riverside to watch those frantic draws against Millwall and Cardiff will understand the appeal of the identity Hellberg is building. Whether the backline can tighten enough to translate that identity into an automatic promotion place is the question the rest of the season will answer.

For now, Middlesbrough are third, in form, and about to take on a side that stands between them and top spot. Hellberg, at least, sounds like a man with nothing to hide about how his team intends to get there.

Frequently asked

Where are Middlesbrough in the Championship table?
Middlesbrough are third in the Championship after 11 games. A win at Bolton Wanderers on Friday would lift them to the top of the table.
How many goals have Middlesbrough scored this Championship season?
Middlesbrough have scored 22 Championship goals in their first 11 matches, one of the highest tallies in English football at this stage of the season.
What is Kim Hellberg's record as Middlesbrough head coach?
Kim Hellberg has won 20 of his 43 Championship matches in charge of Middlesbrough, building the side around an attacking, high-possession style.