Middlesbrough's decision to spend big on a little-known Tottenham striker raised eyebrows back in the summer. Five appearances into his Riverside career, those doubts have all but evaporated.
"A lot of people questioned it," Scott Chickelday tells Sky Sports.
Those same people are now looking at it and thinking, hang on, we might have got a bit of a bargain here.
That is the kind of start Will Lankshear has made since swapping north London for Teesside.
According to The Athletic, Lankshear completed his permanent move from Tottenham Hotspur to Middlesbrough on 22 July 2026, signing a five-year contract at the Riverside. The fee has been widely reported by Sky Sports as an initial £10 million, potentially climbing as high as £20 million once add-ons are factored in.
He wasted no time making an impression. Lankshear struck a volleyed winner on his debut against Wrexham in the Carabao Cup on 7 August 2026, a moment the BBC described as a "brilliant winner" that showed just how quickly he had settled in. He then followed it up with a second-half brace to help turn around Middlesbrough's Championship opener, sealing a 2-1 win over Lincoln City on 15 August 2026, as reported by Sky Sports.
Striker coach Chickelday, who has worked one-on-one with Lankshear on his finishing for the past two years, is unsurprised by the impact. He coaches a number of top Premier League players but ranks the 21-year-old above the lot of them when it comes to finishing.
He has got all the finishes in the book,
Chickelday explains.
He has got the little flicks around the corner, tap-ins, headers, volleys. Just an all-round No 9 and there are not many around at the minute. His finishing is incredible. I tell people and they laugh at me, but this boy is the closest thing I have seen to Harry Kane.
It is a bold thing to say about a 21-year-old still finding his feet in the Championship. Kane, after all, has scored more goals for England than anyone in the country's history and currently holds the European Golden Shoe as its reigning winner. But others close to Lankshear see the same parallels - not just in style, but in the route he has taken and the attitude that underpins it.
The loan years that shaped him
Like Kane before him, not every loan spell away from Spurs went smoothly. A stint at West Bromwich Albion passed without a single goal to his name. Things improved on a personal level during a difficult season at Oxford United, even as the club were relegated from the Championship.
Oxford was a big step for Will. He had gone out on loan before and it had not quite worked out,
Matt Bloomfield tells Sky Sports. Bloomfield took charge at Oxford in January with the club sitting just one place off the foot of the table, and it did not take long for Lankshear - tasked with leading the line for a side fighting relegation - to catch his eye.
He worked incredibly hard for us, left everything out on the pitch,
says Bloomfield. The experience, he believes, sharpened Lankshear's all-round game.
With very limited senior football behind him, he just needed help to round his game off. We were out of possession a lot so it was about being in position when we won it back. We did a lot of work on his hold-up play and being a nuisance when we cleared the ball.
Viewed in that context, his return of 11 goals in the Championship last season looks like a real achievement.
In a team that got relegated, that is some going,
says Chickelday.
It is tough when you are down there.
At Middlesbrough, in a very different environment, he should have the platform to show even more of what he can do.
He is in a totally different environment now,
agrees Bloomfield.
Middlesbrough will dominate the ball and that will suit him even more with the opportunities that they create. He is born to score goals. He is obsessed. All he wants to do is train and score.
The Kane comparisons
It is that relentless focus on self-improvement that keeps bringing the Kane comparisons back into the conversation.
He is a lovely lad but he has got an edge to him,
says his old boss.
He wants to be successful. All the top players are single-minded and driven.
Bloomfield adds:
He has a massive natural instinct but you can see the hours of practice too. It is the same with Harry Kane and his goals. It is not just natural instinct. These guys are born goalscorers but they also work so incredibly hard at their craft.
Stories from his time at Oxford back that up. When training finished, Lankshear often wanted to keep going.
He would just stay out there finishing all day. We had to push him back in the building. We had a game the next day and needed his legs.
Given that, Bloomfield is not surprised to learn Lankshear has continued working with a one-on-one coach to add extras on top of his usual sessions. Chickelday himself has grown used to the level of dedication the young striker brings to every appointment.
He does not just turn up, do a session and go. He will get there 40 minutes before the session starts, do a warm up and then do the hour with me. Then they will stay for another 25 to 30 minutes doing running after the session. That shows you his mentality.
Lankshear attends these sessions alongside his older brother Alex, who himself found the net for Gateshead at the weekend. So what exactly do they work on?
It is a lot of repetition work, match scenarios. Headers, volleys, finishes from cutbacks. All types of finishes.
Chickelday adds:
Did you see the one that he scored for Oxford from outside the box?
He is referring to the second of Lankshear's goals against Sheffield Wednesday in April.
It was the typical Kane finish where he cuts in and bends the ball into the top corner.
It has become something of a trademark.
He likes to drift out on the left and cut inside. But whatever he can do on his right foot, he can do on his left. That is what gives him that unpredictability when he is finishing as well. He does not mind which way that the defender shows him.
It is his ruthlessness in front of goal and his consistency in hitting the target. His shots-on-target ratio is phenomenal. In our sessions, he rarely misses the target at all. I am not saying that he is scoring with every single shot but he does work the goalkeeper.
Bloomfield's point about matching talent with dedication explains a lot of the excitement building around Lankshear. He is capable of spectacular strikes, but he is just as comfortable with the unglamorous near-post run or capitalising on a goalkeeper's fumble.
Among the 72 players in the Championship last season who had 50 shots or more, Lankshear ranked third for expected goals per shot. Even during a relegation battle at Oxford, he was consistently getting himself into high-quality positions - a direct product of the work he puts in away from matchday.
There is still more to come, too.
He never gets to take them but he is a really good free-kick taker,
says Chickelday, who is convinced there are big things ahead.
It is his mentality. He wants to be the best. He wants to be the No 1 striker in England. And then obviously he wants to be the No 1 in the world too. And I really would not be surprised in two years' time if he is Harry Kane's replacement.
I do not want to talk about moves at the minute because Middlesbrough will probably kill me. He has only been there five minutes. But I think he is two moves away from being a £100 million striker if he keeps developing and doing well - and I think he will.
For now, the focus is firmly on helping Middlesbrough push for promotion back to the Premier League. Those who know Lankshear best have no doubts about where his career is heading.
I have absolutely no doubt about that,
adds Bloomfield.
Will is going to the very top.
What happens next
Middlesbrough's next assignment sees them travel to face Blackburn Rovers in the Championship on 22 August 2026, according to ESPN. Given his early impact against Wrexham and Lincoln City, Boro's fans will be hoping Lankshear can add to his goal tally against Rovers as he continues to settle into life on Teesside.
