Lincoln City’s first game back in the second tier of English football after more than 60 years is now upon us as the Imps travel to the Riverside Stadium to face Middlesbrough on Saturday afternoon, writes Kyle Fox.
The Championship returns this weekend with Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw facing one of the toughest possible tests as they begin life as Championship head coaches. But the new managerial duo couldn’t have asked for a better start after a 2-1 victory over Derby County last weekend at Pride Park saw their side progress to the second round of the Carabao Cup. Middlesbrough also progressed through the first round by beating fellow Championship side Wrexham 1-0. The winning goal came from new promising striker Will Lankshear, who opened his Boro account with an acrobatic volley in the 61st minute.
Head coach Kim Hellberg has been backed heavily during this summer’s transfer window thanks to the departure of last season’s Championship Player of the Season and club captain Hayden Hackney for a reported potential £24 million fee after add-ons. They have also received around £20 million due to the sell-on clause that was activated when Chelsea signed Morgan Rogers earlier this summer. They have reinvested that money into different areas of their squad. They brought in Myles Peart-Harris following the expiration of his contract at Oxford United, where he contributed three goals and one assist in 19 Championship appearances last season.
Boro have also found success in the American market since signing midfielder Aidan Morris from MLS side Columbus Crew in 2024. He has now been joined this summer by two more American players, one of whom is left-sided full-back or wing-back Max Arfsten, who has come in to replace Max Targett, and Sebastian Berhalter, who is the replacement for the departed Hackney. Both players featured for the USA at the World Cup this summer and both also started the EFL Cup fixture against Wrexham last Friday evening.
Versatile forward Kyle Joseph has been signed from Hull City, the team that beat Middlesbrough in the play-off final, while winger Jeremy Sarmiento has arrived from Brighton after several loan spells at multiple Championship clubs over the past few seasons, plus a short loan in Italy’s top flight with Cremonese at the beginning of last season. He has now settled at Boro on a permanent transfer from Brighton after spending the second half of last season at the club on loan.
Their largest expenditure this summer has come from two players at opposite ends of the pitch, with one of them being the newly signed goalkeeper Radek Vitek from Manchester United after his impressive breakout season on loan with Bristol City last campaign, where he kept 12 clean sheets in the league. The aforementioned starlet striker Will Lankshear has come in on a possible club-record fee from Spurs, with an initial £10m fee which could rise all the way to £20m if all add-ons are triggered. This would surpass the fee they reportedly paid for Britt Assombalonga, which was roughly £15m back in 2017.
Middlesbrough Form
Middlesbrough are looking to bounce back this season after the club infamously became the first team ever to lose in both the play-off semi-final and then the final too after they were reinstated due to Southampton’s expulsion post-‘Spy Gate’. They started last season very strongly under previous manager Rob Edwards, who left in mid-November 2025 to join Premier League outfit Wolves.
Kim Hellberg was then appointed his successor in late November. Consecutive wins and winless runs both became a theme throughout his tenure last season, as his side won four in a row shortly after he joined and then also won five consecutive matches from mid-January until early February. This would also coincide with a four-game winless run around the Christmas period and seven games without a victory from the middle of March until the middle of April. They seemed to burn out towards the end of last season, which was possibly the main reason they ended up finishing fifth instead of competing for the automatic promotion places they seemed destined for earlier in the campaign.
Middlesbrough are yet another side who didn’t get on the right side of results during pre-season this summer, starting with a 1-1 draw with Celtic in July. That was followed by a 3-1 defeat to Huddersfield, and their last pre-season fixture was against Spanish side Espanyol, which ended in a 3-3 draw. So, no victories for Hellberg’s side during those pre-season outings, although what has always been very clear is that those results are not indicative of how well a team will perform in competitive games.
Previous Meetings
These two sides have not met since 1 April 1961 in a game that the Imps won 5-2 at home. Brian Clough played and scored for Boro in that game. The first meeting came back in 1886 in an FA Cup fixture.
Overall, Middlesbrough have got the better of Lincoln across the 23 occasions these two sides have played each other. Boro have claimed victory ten times, Lincoln have won six times and there have been seven draws.
Referee Overview
Robert Madley (AKA Bobby) is the man in charge of this game, a name which may sound familiar to Lincoln fans. He most recently refereed Lincoln’s 4-0 home victory over Blackpool last season, a game which involved Madley making many controversial decisions, with the most obvious one being an incident where Blackpool’s striker Ashley Fletcher had the ball near the sideline and, as it flicked up into the air, he used his hand to control the ball and push it forward into his path, allowing him to get past the Lincoln defender. That incident almost ended in a goal for the visitors, and Madley never gave the handball.
He has officiated 194 competitive games in total and, across all those matches, averaged 3.48 yellow cards and 0.20 red cards per match, with 21.9 fouls awarded per match. More recently, in his last 20 matches, he has averaged 3.9 yellow cards per game and both teams received bookings in 75% of those fixtures. In total, he has awarded 37 penalties and 28 red cards. Madley is a referee with Premier League experience who spent the majority of last season in the Championship alongside games in League One, League Two and the EFL Cup.
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