Middlesbrough FC will have Chuba Akpom regret as he returns with Ipswich Town | OneFootball

Teesside will welcome back their former golden boot winner when the Tractor Boys pull into town on Friday night.

Middlesbrough will welcome Chuba Akpom back to the Riverside Stadium on Friday night, and Rob Edwards will surely be wishing he had Ipswich Town's 29 wearing that same number he made himself a Teesside cult hero in.

A mouthwatering Championship clash on the banks of the River Tees awaits this Friday, as high-flying Middlesbrough welcome an in-form Ipswich Town team to the North East.

Boro have come flying out of the blocks under Edwards, with a record-breaking start to the campaign seeing them sitting second in the division behind Coventry City.

However, the Teessiders have stalled somewhat as of late, and are now winless in their last three thanks to draws with Southampton and Stoke, before falling to their first defeat of the season away at Portsmouth last time out.

Ipswich, on the other hand, had more of a typical Boro start to the season, going winless in their opening four league games before taking out that built up frustration on Sheffield United, as the Tractor Boys put the Blades to the sword to the tune of five goals to nil.

Since then, Kieran McKenna's men haven't tasted another defeat, and return from the international break fresh off the back of their first East Anglian derby win over Norwich City since 2009, beating the Canaries 3-1 at Portman Road.

Chuba Akpom's record-breaking 2022/23 season saw him become Middlesbrough cult hero

Middlesbrough fans waited a very long time to see a player score goals at the rate which Akpom did on Teesside: 33 years, to be exact.

Indeed, Bernie Slaven was the last Boro player to score 20-plus league goals for the club all the way back in the 1989/90 season, but then he was finally able to have some company, and it came via a player whose Middlesbrough career seemed dead in the water.

Having signed for Boro in the summer of 2020 from Greek side PAOK, the former Arsenal man scored just five league goals in 38 Championship appearances during his debut 2020/21 campaign, with Neil Warnock opting to deploy him as a striker.

As a result, a loan move was believed to be the best thing for him, and so he returned to PAOK on a temporary basis for the 2021/22 season, before returning to the Riverside in the summer of 2022 to now find Chris Wilder in charge.

The Sheffield United boss evidently didn't favour him though, splashing significant fees to bring Marcus Forss and Matthew Hoppe to the club, whilst also completing a loan deal to sign Fulham's Rodrigo Muniz.

So, after training away from the team over pre-season as he awaited news of his next destination, an injury crisis in Boro's forward ranks occurred, and Akpom was drafted back into the first-team fold as an emergency piece of cover.

The rest, they say, is history. Two goals against Sheffield United on matchday three of the 2022/23 season saw him reacquaint himself with the Riverside faithful, before an injury problem of his own forced him to miss the next handful of games.

Once fit again, he'd make one more appearance under Wilder before he was sacked as Middlesbrough boss in October 2022, and was replaced a couple of weeks later by Michael Carrick.

The Manchester United and England legend saw something different in Boro's 29 too: his potential effectiveness operating as an attacking midfielder rather than centre-forward.

So, that's what Carrick did, as he dropped Akpom behind the lone striker, and it unlocked a golden boot-winning campaign that saw him score 28 league goals, and land himself a big-money move to Dutch giants Ajax in the summer of 2023.

Chuba Akpom hasn't hit the ground running at Ipswich Town

Now 30, Akpom's time in the Dutch capital didn't quite go to plan for him.

It wasn't a disaster by any means, as he fired home 15 goals and provided three assists in 36 total appearances during his debut 2023/24 season with the Amsterdam-based outfit.

However, he could only muster a modest eight goals and one assist for them during the first half of last season, before spending the second half of last term out on loan with French Ligue 1 side Lille.

Three goals in 16 total appearances for Lille saw him return to Ajax firmly on the fringes, and has once again headed out on loan for this season, with Ipswich Town completing a temporary deal for him this summer.

But, the attacking midfielder has started just three league games for Ipswich so far this term, and was only afforded a four-minute cameo against Norwich last time out from the substitutes bench, as McKenna looked to see out the game.

He's yet to find the net for the Suffolk-based side either, and looks somewhat of a shell of his former golden-boot self with Middlesbrough.

Chuba Akpom plotline makes for juicy Middlesbrough v Ipswich Town clash

Despite his lack of form this season, should you ask any Middlesbrough fan if they would've liked to see Akpom back in red and white this season, it's safe to assume that the overwhelming majority would absolutely say yes.

They very nearly did too, with Boro reported to have been in 'advanced talks' to hijack Birmingham City's deal for him at the time, but Middlesbrough couldn't agree a deal with Ajax, with the Dutch side looking for either a permanent exit, or the obligation to make his move a permanent one included in the deal.

Portman Road would prove to be his destination, but had he been back at the Riverside Stadium for more than one night only this year, then Rob Edwards would surely have found a big role for him.

The Boro boss has been largely deploying two attacking midfielders behind the centre-forward this season, with Tommy Conway, Sontje Hansen, Kaly Sene, Morgan Whittaker, Sverre Nypan and Delano Burgzorg among the players to have all been tried there to varying degrees of success.

However, Middlesbrough's attack has gone off the boil in recent weeks, with just one goal scored in their last three Championship games, with a lot of that coming down to a lot of chopping and changing of his forward line.

David Strelec, Sene and Conway respectively are all centre-forwards by trade, and Boro have seen the result of somewhat shoehorning the latter in particular into one of those two number 10 positions: largely ineffective performances.

So, having a natural attacking midfielder like Akpom who has proven that he can tear the Championship up from this position would surely mean he'd have a massive role to play under Edwards given the lack of goal production from those who've occupied these spots so far.

But, he's a Tractor Boy now, and whilst he may receive the odd tongue-in-cheek boo from some areas of the Riverside crowd, he is sure to receive a hero's welcome back on Teesside this Friday night.