Discussing the influence Michael Carrick had on his career, with the Manchester United boss having been in charge at the Riverside Stadium between 2022 and 2025, Hackney recalls: "He was a lot more on the ball stuff which, in the Championship, was relative because we had a lot of the ball.
"He was perfect for me and the other midfielders because we would split off into groups, midfielders, defenders, attackers, and he was with us a lot of the time. To be learning from him, you just took everything that he said and tried to put it into your game. I learnt a lot from him."
Hackney and Middlesbrough earned a spot in the Championship play-off final during the 2025-26 campaign despite losing to Southampton in the semis. The Spygate scandal that gripped English football back in May saw the Saints barred from the showpiece at Wembley, with Boro reinstated, and the Everton midfielder explained how surreal the situation was.
GOALHe said: "I was actually injured at the time, so I wasn't in the training session where he (Southampton analyst William Salt) got caught [spying]. I was coming back from my scan with the physio in the car and we've seen it all happening. We got back and he was like, 'oh, there's a random guy watching training'. We obviously played the game and it didn't go as planned, emotionally everyone was on the floor, and then we had the weekend off and came back into training on the Monday.
"It was crazy. We were doing mini-games after we just lost in the semi-finals and some people were like, 'come on, we can't keep doing this'. And then the more time it took, the more sessions we got, we were like, 'maybe we have to start getting back on it'. We were [then suddenly] in the final, it was heart breaking [to lose to Hull]."
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