Hayden Hackney: the art of ball progression
The Middlesbrough midfielder is on a "different planet" - but is he ready for the Premier League?
In January 2020, the England Football Association (FA) released a set of videos of Michael Carrick – a member of the Manchester United coaching staff at the time – breaking down the nuts and bolts of passing and receiving in midfield. With plain, simple language, Carrick artfully deconstructed midfield playmaking at a granular level, in an interview overlaid with short clips of his own passing over the years. The videos still go through spells of virality every once in a while.
Fast forward five years, and it’s almost like Hayden Hackney has waltzed from the frames of those videos and into the real world. The 22-year-old, raised at Middlesbrough’s academy and coached for three years by Carrick himself, has been a constant presence during Boro’s attempts at securing promotion playoff spots over the past couple of years. He is, in many ways, Carrick’s muse, the embodiment of the England conductor’s ideals.
“Hayden Hackney progresses the ball in his sleep,” Jake wrote last month. While investigating his SCOUTED Squad for the Championship, Hackney was so much an outlier for progressive actions the word ‘outlier’ seems soft. “He’s on another planet.”
Jake Entwistle
As Boro’s middling performances and Carrick’s departure make Hackney’s staying through the summer all the less likely, a varied host of clubs are circling for his playmaking talents. If Jake’s discovery had piqued our investigative interest, the coming headlines sealed the deal: it was time for a deep dive into Hayden Hackney and his fabled art of ball progression.
