Janoi Donacien admits he would love to emulate fellow full-back Luke Garbutt and get among the goals to help Town’s promotion push.
While Donacien has recently returned to the side in the absence of the injured Kane Vincent-Young, who is not expected back until at least February, Everton loanee Garbutt has been a regular choice since the start of the season and even scored in each of the first two league games at Burton and at home to Sunderland.
Garbutt, who manager Paul Lambert has hinted he would like to sign on a permanent basis in the January transfer window, has actually netted five times to put himself just two behind strikers Kayden Jackson and James Norwood, who are on seven apiece.
Asked if he might be able to chip in with some goals over the remainder of the season, 26-year-old Donacien said: "I want to massively improve that aspect of my game and get a few goals. I look at Garbs and he is flying this season with all sorts of goals.”
But Donacien has just one goal in 206 career appearances, scored for former club Accrington just over three years ago in his first season with the club after moving from Aston Villa, so it would be a major surprise if he suddenly started to bang them in.
He added: "Hopefully I will start to get among the goals as well because I believe that goalscoring is down to everyone on the pitch, not just the strikers.
"As a team you don’t just start attacks from the front. You start from the back and push forward as a team then you try to keep piling the pressure on and try to score.
"I’m a defender so the main thing for me is to keep the goals out. As much as we want to score more goals, we also want to concede fewer, which means defenders doing their jobs at the back.
"But I like to get forward and even if I don’t score I can help the team to get goals with some assists. I am in a position to do that with crosses from the right side.”
Town sit second in the League One table, four points adrift of leaders Wycombe and with a game in hand, but despite their lofty perch they are only fifth in terms of league goals scored, behind Peterborough, Oxford, Fleetwood and Rotherham.
In their last nine outings in all competitions Paul Lambert’s team have scored just eight times in a run that brought only one win, although they drew six and only suffered two defeats while conceding nine times.
Donacien was quick to point out, however, that Town have conceded fewer league goals — just 13 in 18 games — than any of their League One rivals and although the midweek 2-1 home defeat by Coventry in an FA Cup second round replay was an obvious disappointment, overall he considers them to be in decent shape.
He said: "Obviously, the boys are disappointed with the result against Coventry. We are out of the FA Cup and we’ve lost a game at home in front of our fans, so the boys are eager to get back out on the pitch on Saturday against Bristol Rovers.
"We want to get some momentum, no matter what game or competition it is. We want to win every game that we play.
"We lost to Coventry and didn’t play well but there were no meetings, nothing out of the ordinary. We know where we’re at and we know what our goals are this season.”