Luke Hyam and his midfield colleagues are keen to get among the goals in Town’s remaining games this season.

Ipswich-born Hyam has found the net just once - in the 3-1 home victory over Nottingham Forest in November - in 37 appearances, 14 of them coming in the current campaign.

Guirane N’Daw has also weighed in with a solitary goal, as has Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, while Daryl Murphy netted from midfield at Brighton earlier in the season, making the overall contribution from the middle of the park in the league a meagre four. Ex-loanee Massimo Luongo added one more in the Capital One Cup defeat at Carlisle.

Town are the lowest-scoring side in the Championship, averaging just one goal in each of their 28 fixtures to date, and 21-year-old Hyam said: “I can’t explain why there have been so few goals.

“It’s just one of those things. I’d like more goals but all the players want to chip in with goals. When DJ was here he got 10 goals but everyone needs to be chipping in and that means defenders, midfielders and attackers.

“There is a lot of quality in the team, especially up front with the new players — Frank [Nouble], Aaron [Mclean] and Didsy [David McGoldrick]. I feel they can score a lot of goals in this league.

“They are all decent finishers and they have looked really sharp in training over the last couple of weeks. Once they score one goal I think a few more will come after that.”

Hyam knows it will require a step-up in performance from last week’s 1-1 home draw with Barnsley if Town are to return victorious from another of their relegation rivals, rock-bottom Bristol City, tomorrow.

He added: “Everyone knows that we didn’t play very well against Barnsley. Individually, I felt I didn’t play very well and it was the same as a team.

“But it’s gone now and we’re looking to Saturday, which gives us a chance to make amends. We had done well the previous week to bring back a point from Cardiff but that’s the Championship for you.

“It’s inconsistent — one week we’re good and the next week we’re bad. We need to find a level of consistency. We have got back on the training pitch this week so there’s no way we can blame our preparation. We’ve prepared very well all week and hopefully we will do well on Saturday.”

Photo: Action Images

irishtim added 10:36 - Jan 25 For certain we need a goalscoring midfielder. Lack of goals all over the pitch this season is a major worry. Hopefully we will see a few by our players tomorrow.
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StowTractorBoy added 11:10 - Jan 25 At the moment the system we are playing does not suit Hyam who is best played as a holding player in front of the back four breaking up the play. He is not what I would call a craftsman providing service to our strikers and not a prolific goalscorer. He did have a terrific spell with Drury in the centre of midfield but of late he has not flourished in that position. Really hope he can move his game on as he is one of our own and gives his all.

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MattinLondon added 12:33 - Jan 25 If you play Hyam and N'Daw in the middle then you really need two out-and-out wingers who can run at pace, get to the bar line and cross for the strikers - don't think any of the senoir players are capable of doing this at the moment
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