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Middlesbrough cup clash important in a different way with Kim Hellberg's honest admission Wrexham visit the Riverside the round one Carabao Cup clash With ambitions of achieving Premier League promotion this season, boss Kim Hellberg is looking for Middlesbrough to set the tone for their league campaign in Friday evening’s Carabao Cup clash with Wrexham. In a slight change to the usual schedule, Boro will start their season with a first round cup tie before their Championship campaign begins a week later at home to Lincoln City. After an ambitious summer transfer window from Boro - with five players signed and two more in Radek Vitek and Ashley Phillips close - the club are targeting promotion back to the Premier League, having narrowly missed out on a return last term. While this cup clash with fellow Championship promotion hopefuls may not be a priority therefore for Boro, it’s one Hellberg still treats as a game he wants to win for different reasons. The Boro head coach said honestly: “It’s probably the only competitive game where you can actually say that a more important game is coming up in the following week. “It is, but this is still a very important game. You want to win, because it’s important to start the season with a win to build up a character of winning. “You’re playing at home, and you want to go through to get more games with a bigger squad - that’s what we’re aiming for. So, it’s a very important game. “But, of course, it comes with one even more important coming up a week later. You have to balance that, and that means not taking any unnecessary risks with any players. That’s the balance. “We will try to do everything we can to try to win the game, but you also need to balance some things and maybe don’t take a risk that you might have taken if it was a week further down the line.” The feeling on the game seems to be similar for visitors Wrexham. Teesside-born Phil Parkinson is expected to treat it like an additional pre-season friendly. The North Wales outfit only arrived home from a summer tour in the USA on Monday, having played Sunderland in Pennsylvania on Sunday. They’ve also scheduled a midweek training game with Wigan Athletic after. On the Boro game, Parkinson said after the Sunderland loss: "We go back now, Middlesbrough on Friday and then we play Wigan on Monday. "The Friday game is the Carabao Cup but the Wigan game has got a lot of importance as well because we need to make sure as we go into the week of the Cardiff game, we've got another real block of minutes in the lads' legs. “Friday’s match is a cup match and we’ll be going all out to win it. It’s a game where we’ve got to give as many players minutes as we can and have everyone near 90 minutes by the following week’s Monday match.” The winner of Friday's clash will advance into the second round, the draw for which will take place on Monday evening. The EFL confirmed the draw will take place at roughly 7.20pm, during the build-up to the Plymouth vs Exeter clash on Sky Sports Football. Still a regionalised draw, 11 Premier League sides who aren't in European competitions this season will enter at the second-round stage. ------------- Get Teesside Live Premium now for just £1 HERE – exclusive Boro news and features, transfer notebooks, comment and analysis from Eric Paylor, plus an ad-lite experience Join our WhatsApp community to get all the breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here to subscribe. Your information will be hidden, you'll only ever receive messages from the Teesside Live sports team, and you can leave any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'Exit group'. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.