IT is good to see the burden of scoring goals being shared around at Worcester City this season.
Last year I think we relied heavily on Mike Symons for his goals and if he had a barren spell, which most forwards do at some point, it tended to coincide with us struggling.
We brought Danny Glover in over the summer because we needed another forward to contribute goals alongside Symmo and we have Michael Taylor, who scored a few although he didn’t play many games.
Michael’s strike ratio compared to the number of starts is probably the best in the team and he’s got a habit of getting goals.
However, it’s nice to see more players chipping in this season — there have been eight different scorers already.
Tom Thorley is technically very good and has got a decent free-kick which has been demonstrated with a couple of goals, while Rob Elvins also has a knack of scoring.
It’s important for central defenders to get on the scoresheet, even if it’s just a few, and Jacob Rowe was on target in the FA Cup win at Gornal Athletic last Saturday.
Having confidence and belief has been an important factor but we boast a strong squad which has improved since last season.Although we were good, there is more quality now and the team are creating more chances and converting a larger percentage.
Scoring goals has been important for us but, in order for us to improve our league position from last season, we needed a swing in the goal difference.
You have to work hard to score goals but we stressed to the players that we had to defend better as a team and keep more clean sheets. We had to make it harder to score against us.
That’s the bigger picture and we have done that to date but must now keep going.
Last year we suffered a few 4-1 defeats, which shatters the goal difference, so that can’t happen this season and we need to be difficult to beat.
So far, I couldn’t really have asked for more than one defeat in nine games and we are happy with the start.
It was also good to get through in the cup at Gornal. Although it didn’t affect myself, Matt Gardiner or the players, a lot of emphasis was put on the defeat at Godalming from last October.
So we are glad to be up and running in the competition and hopefully that episode can be consigned to history.
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