Kim Hellberg makes 'settle' claim after Middlesbrough's draw with Burnley

Kim Hellberg was ruefully forced to “settle” for a point against Burnley after feeling his Middlesbrough side were worthy of all three.

Last season’s play-off finalists played out a 1-1 draw with the Clarets at Turf Moor last night in a true game of two halves.

Boro were far better in the first half, edging ahead through Aidan Morris’ long-range strike before squandering other good chances to extend their lead.

But Burnley were much improved after the restart, levelling through another fine strike from range from Ugo Raghouber.

Both sides were forced to settle for a point in the end, but Hellberg felt if one side was going to win it, it was going to be Boro.

“We were very good,” he said.

“We played a good side with a lot of good players, away from home, and did it very, very good.

“First half I think it's a very good first half from us, and I think it goes over 90 minutes that we are the better team.

“From my point of view, we control it, play good football and create, especially in the first half a lot of chances and keep them to very few.

“They have a spell in the second half, 15 minutes maybe, where they are quite strong but don't create so many chances.

“But where they are a little bit better than us, from us being a little bit not good enough with the ball and some duels. We don't get out and they get the crowd with them in some transitions.

“Otherwise I think we're doing a very good game. We would have wanted three points, but we had to settle for one.”

Such was the dominance of Boro’s first-half display, Hellberg described it as one of his side’s “best games” of the season so far.

“That was one very impressive first half,” he added.

“Again, over 90 minutes I think it's a very good away game. We look at chances, we have a lot of them and we concede very few.

“We're strong and we're pressing and we look like we want to look, and over 90 minutes I think that was a strong performance.

“The first half was in many ways brilliant. We're still getting there with a lot of players, like we said, coming back and building them up, which means that we will just get better and that's the thing.

“But I think this was a big step forward in terms of how we want to look as a football side, and I think you recognised a lot of things from last season.

“In general this was one of our best games this season in terms of how we looked against a very strong opponent.”