Chris Wilder spoke at length about how his tactical philosophy and how he sees his Boro side playing under him ahead of his first game against Millwall. 

There's intrigue and excitement building ahead of Wilder's first game in charge at the Riverside given the innovative systems he deployed while at Sheffield United.

Boro fans will be hoping for more of the same attractive, attacking football and Wilder is hoping to emulate that.

He told the Gazette: "We want to play in a certain way. There has been a culture in terms of the way the football club has played their football as well. You know, dominating the ball and playing decent football.

"For me, it's effective football. Let's play effective football, let's not just be pigeon-holed with we are just going to play one way. Effective football is playing different ways, most importantly whatever it takes to win a game of football and that is what hopefully we can bring."

That will please Boro fans who have had the likes of Tony Pulis, Garry Monk and Jonathon Woodgate in recent years without any success being delivered from their previous managers.

Wilder went onto expand on how being flexible is important to him, which should get the best out of this Boro side: “There’s a lot of talk about how we play, but I’ve always been a flexible manager in terms of how I play and not sticking to one style to win a game of football.

"There are two or three ways you can go. You can go through, around or over and players nowadays have got to be tactically flexible for different systems.

“We’ll try and dominate the ball, but we have total respect for the division and the teams we are coming up against."

Wilder's first game as 'Boro boss sees them host Millwall on Saturday afternoon, with the club currently 14th in the Championship table, six points adrift of the play-off places.

The Verdict

Chris Wilder is certainly one of the more underrated coaches in England. His Sheffield United side did display a tactical innovation with those overlapping centre halves but there was much more to them than that.

They were a high pressing, high energy attacking side who didn't have any glamourous names and were hitting far higher than their budget should have allowed.

That's down to a clear message and quality coaching from Wilder, and now Boro have the opportunity to reap the benefits of a very talented manager.