Josh Coburn was once the great young hope at Middlesbrough. The teenage star they believed could develop into a centre-forward who would fire them into the Premier League.
That was then, this is now and Coburn has returned to Teesside to score two goals that completed a stunning Millwall fightback and put a huge dent in his former club’s automatic promotion hopes.
Coburn, a Boro fan as a child, has been in brilliant form for Millwall as they make their unexpected charge towards promotion. Big and strong, he plays like a traditional No 9 and there are not enough of those in the modern game.
The 23-year-old has always done the dirty work, the chasing and the harrying, the hold-up play and the headers, but the goals have started to flow with eight in 14 games since he returned from injury in January.
None, though, will have been sweeter than his double here. Millwall had been outplayed in the first half. Middlesbrough sliced through them almost at will and should have scored more than one goal, via the head of Dael Fry, before half-time.
Some of Boro’s football is thrilling, but they do not have a reliable source of goals and despite creating a host of chances in open play – with a total of 32 shots over the course of the 90 minutes – their only goal came from a corner that had not been cleared.
Fry had missed a far easier chance, lifting the ball over from six yards when unmarked, before he headed his hometown club in front but he was not alone. Boro, not for the first time, did not score two or three when they were on top and paid a heavy price.
“I’m extremely proud of the performance,” manager Kim Hellberg said. “We created a lot of chances but football is about scoring goals and we have not done that well enough. It’s simple really. There is big disappointment after that.”
At half-time, Boro looked dominant, but just as they did against another promotion rival, Ipswich Town last month, Millwall came out a different side after the break.
They were more direct, more aggressive and put the Boro defence under pressure whenever they swung balls into the box.
“We stayed in the game,” manager Alex Neil said. “They were much better than us in the first half. In the second half, we played to our strengths. We are never going to come here and pop the ball around and play Middlesbrough off the park, that’s not who we are. We were snappier, we won more duels and got ourselves up the pitch. We beat them by doing what we do well.”
A lot of what they do well goes through Coburn. Millwall’s first goal came from a corner, Jake Cooper winning the initial header across goal, Mihailo Ivanovic hooking it back into the middle, where Coburn swivelled. Boro goalkeeper Sol Brynn, who had already made one excellent save to protect his side’s lead, looked like he had kept the shot out, but having got a hand to the ball, his body knocked it back over the line.
The second goal was the killer, the otherwise excellent Adilson Malanda giving the ball away cheaply and Coburn did the rest, standing up Luke Ayling and then guiding a low shot into the far corner. It came against the run of play, but Boro have been dropping far too many points in games they dominate.
And how the Millwall fans loved it, reminding the home fans just how much their loss had been to the south Londoners’ gain. Coburn smiled when he heard their chanting and celebrated both goals with enormous glee, sprinting over to the away fans, leaping into the air and roaring with delight.
“There was a lot of emotion I couldn’t hold in,” he explained. “Coming back here for the first time since I left, it was strange. I was a Boro fan as a kid, but I left because I knew I would score goals if I was playing regularly. That is what Millwall offered me and I’ve come on so much.”
Boro will regret letting him go, but he struggled to stay fit after making his debut under Neil Warnock, initially bursting onto the scene, scoring a winning goal in the FA Cup against Tottenham Hotspur. There were always flashes of quality, glimpses of potential, but whatever affection he once had for Boro disappeared under former manager Michael Carrick.
Sent out on loan to Bristol Rovers in 2022 and again to Millwall two years later after losing out to Emmanuel Latte Lath in the battle to start up front under Carrick, Coburn did not want to come back from Millwall last summer and turned that temporary move into a permanent one in a club-record £5m transfer.
“He suits how we want to play because we want that target man,” Neil added. “I’m not sure he suits the way Middlesbrough want to play, I don’t know what happened there, but we’re delighted with him.
“I think his injury was a big turning point because he got himself in the gym, he worked really hard, he has put on some muscle and some bulk and he is playing with more grit, more aggression. He has always been a fantastic finisher.”
