Rokas Pukstas: The Midfield Engine for Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough have gone to Croatia for their new midfield engine, and they know exactly what they’re getting: power, running, and a serious threat arriving late in the box.

Rokas Pukstas, 22, joins Boro after four full seasons in the Hajduk Split first team, where he racked up 142 appearances, 27 goals and 10 assists. All of it in Croatian domestic football. England will be new. The way he plays will not be subtle.

Croatian football journalist Lovre Nikolac has watched him closely. He boils Pukstas’ game down to one key weapon: that late, punishing surge into the penalty area.

“He is very good arriving late and as soon as he steps on the pitch, as soon as there’s an aerial duel, he wins it,” Nikolac told BBC Radio Tees. “He can jump high. He’s very strong and his play with headers is amazing. If there’s one thing that he cannot improve on, I think it’s that. He arrives late and [also] picks up the scraps sometimes.”

So Boro are not just getting legs. They’re getting goals from midfield, and a player who treats every cross as his to attack.

Kim Hellberg demands intensity from his side. On that front, Pukstas sounds almost tailor-made. Nikolac describes a player who simply refuses to stop.

“Obviously we can talk about the goals, but it’s what he does off the ball,” he said. “He just runs. There’s no other way to put it. He never stops and he does everything that’s needed from him. And he’s box to box, so up and down the pitch the whole game and never looks tired.”

That kind of profile fits neatly into the Championship grind: a USA under-23 international who covers every blade, presses, tracks, and then appears in the box just as defenders think they’ve survived the first wave.

There is a caveat. Pukstas is not the finished article. Not yet.

Nikolac is clear about where the improvement has to come. “He’s not great at passing, but everything else he’s got spot on. Defending, reading the game, late arrivals, scoring goals,” he said. “But if he can improve that, then you have a whole player, a true midfielder. You can use him wherever you want. He has the physicality to do anything.”

That’s the trade-off Middlesbrough are betting on: a relentless, aerially dominant, box-to-box runner whose technical ceiling is still rising. If the passing range catches up with the engine and the timing, Hellberg might have far more than just another hard-working midfielder on his hands.