KIM HELLBERG defended his decision to rest Will Lankshear against Cardiff after the Championship’s top scorer came off the bench to rescue a point for Middlesbrough.
Lankshear has made a flying start to life on Teesside after his summer move from Tottenham and his goal against Stoke in midweek took his tally to 10 for the season in all competitions.
But Hellberg opted to rest his star man for the visit of the Bluebirds on Saturday.
That selection backfired as Cardiff stunned promotion hopefuls Boro with two first-half goals from Jack Moylan and Ollie Tanner.
But Lankshear was introduced at half-time and inspired a fightback, levelling for Boro with his 11th goal of the campaign after Tommy Conway had halved the deficit.
Despite the fact he was sorely missed in the first half, Hellberg insists it was the right decision to rest Lankshear and says he doesn’t want to run the England Under-21 international into the ground.
Hellberg said: “We needed fresh legs up top in some way to press a team that has been, up to this day, the most ball possession team and with the most in-the-box touches.
“They’re very high in terms of creating chances in the league and we needed to match that in terms of energy.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Real Madrid or Middlesbrough, if you’re going to pick the same 11 players, we’re going to say in three months that we have no depth.
“You need to manage your players in this league and look into numbers. We have a lot of players that have no pre-season. Will is one of those who came late and has been doing a lot of good things. He’s been absolutely brilliant and sometimes you need to also protect him.
“It was very difficult for me to do that with Hayden [Hackney] last season – he had to play every minute, every second. So trying to find that balance is very difficult. It helps if you win the game when you do it, because otherwise you get a lot of criticism for it. You just take it and move on.”
Boro pushed for a winner after Lankshear’s leveller but Cardiff clung on, despite going down to 10 men seven minutes from time when Gabriel Osho was sent off for a reckless challenge on the striker.
Middlesbrough: Vitek, Brittain, Ayling (Berhalter 46), Phillips, Borges (Sarmiento 89), Morris, Malanda, Cozier-Duberry (Arfsten 74), McGree (Peart-Harris 79), Conway, Joseph (Lankshear 46). Unused substitutes: Brynn, Byram, Barron, Castledine.
Cardiff City: Trott, Kpakio (Scanlon 73), Bielik, Osho, Bagan, Robertson, Tanner (Davies 79), Joel Colwill (Turnbull 46), Ashford, Willock (Fish 63), Moylan. Unused substitutes: Tyrer, Tankiewicz, Moreno, Holt, Perrett.
Referee: Tom Nield (West Yorkshire).