Roy Keane says the Blues’ lack of goals this season came as a surprise with skipper Jon Walters currently topping the goal charts with just seven. Town have led the Championship’s league for shots on target throughout the season, but the Blues boss says this matters little if those attempts aren’t converted into goals.
Keane said: "We’ve not scored enough goals. I think that’s been a big surprise for everybody. Jon Walters is our leading scorer with seven, when you compare to the two boys at Cardiff [Michael Chopra and Peter Whittingham] and the Forest strikers, seven goals tells a story in itself; you’re not going to get in the top six with someone with seven goals as your top scorer.”
The Football League’s official statistics show that the Blues have managed 347 shots on target so far this season, 31 ahead of West Brom in second, but Keane says this is of no consequence: "Attempts on goals is like going to a nightclub, you could speak to 50 girls but if you’re going home on your own it’s no good, is it? You could only speak to one and go home with her!”
The Town manager admits that the season as a whole hasn’t been good enough, but hopes that supporters can see that progress is being made: "We’re not kidding ourselves, we know we’ve let the fans down far too much this season. I’m not going to Nottingham Forest thinking ‘I’m going back, I used to play for them’. People who know me know I don’t work that way, I’m going up there to win.
"I think the supporters enjoyed going to Derby on Monday, they travelled in decent numbers, there was a good atmosphere there, and they enjoyed the Reading game.
"What we want them to see is that things are turning. There’ll be more setbacks along the way without a shadow of a doubt, but we want to give them something to shout about because we’ve not done so this year.
"As much as I say we’ve been unlucky with the draws, we can’t keep saying that. Football’s not all about ‘lucky’, you’ve got to get over that finishing line.”