Max Arfsten is nine appearances into his Middlesbrough career and manager Kim Hellberg has been pleased with his positive efforts so far. Arfsten is fresh off his best performance yet for the EFL Championship club, scoring his first goal in a 2-2 draw with Birmingham City. The versatile wingback logged 86 minutes in Hellberg’s squad, scoring the opening goal of the match and being a real threat on both sides of the field. Not only did Arfsten show his final-third quality, but he also worked tirelessly on the defensive side of the field. Hellberg praised Arfsten’s aggressiveness in the match, confirming that the 25-year-old is improving after adjusting to a new league and country.“It was a very good performance,” Hellberg said postmatch about Arfsten. “He played a special role, because he’s very, very aggressive, he’s very skillful, and a top quality player around the box offensively.“He’s getting better defensively too, he’s working hard with that,” Hellberg added. “He did his role very, very good today.”Arfsten is one of several U.S. Men’s National Team players getting adjusted to life in the Championship, joining teammate Sebastian Berhalter, as well as Stoke City’s duo of Jack McGlynn and Luca Bombino on that growing list of talents. Similar to Berhalter, Arfsten has forced his way into the mix for minutes in Hellberg’s squad.Middlesbrough are looking to be among the promotion contenders this season after missing out in the playoff final last spring, a reason why both Berhalter and Arfsten were brought in this summer. With Arfsten already impacting matches in the early stages of the new campaign, Hellberg expects him to continue progressing and learning from his opportunities. “And then for him, it’s the same thing as many others: how do you take steps to get even better. The American league is different to [the EFL] Championship, we can say that,” Hellberg said. “So, taking steps for all the players coming in, wherever they come in from. So, how do we take steps from that?“And he’s doing that, he’s learning, he can do a lot of different roles, and I think he did very, very good, especially in the first half for us,” the Swedish manager added. “He was very, very good.”Arfsten and Middlesbrough will resume league action against Wolves on October 9, kicking off a five-match schedule in the month.