'˜The goals will come' - Carlos Carvalhal keeps faith in Sheffield Wednesday's strike force

CARLOS CARVALHAL has backed his strikers to rediscover their scoring touch to avoid Sheffield Wednesday being cut adrift of the Championship's top two.
Sheffield Wednesday boss, Carlos Carvalhal.Sheffield Wednesday boss, Carlos Carvalhal.
Sheffield Wednesday boss, Carlos Carvalhal.

The Owls have scored just 16 goals in 15 league outings this season, compared to leaders Newcastle United who have doubled that tally with 32.

Even Rotherham United, who sit bottom of the Championship ahead of today’s visit of Preson North End, have scored as many goals as the Owls this season.

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It means Wednesday trail Newcastle by 10 points, while second-placed Brighton are seven points better off than the Owls.

But Carvalhal is not unduly worried about the gap between his team, currently in ninth spot, and the automatic promotion places.

“A lot of things happen in the Championship, you can go and up and down in the competition,” he said. “We are in this position now. If you ask me do we deserve to be better off? I would say absolutely, yes.

“With the way we are playing, our quality, we deserve more points, more victories.

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“But we are fighting, we are in a good position and there are other good teams who are below us.

“We are in a marathon, and I have a team who I know can fight for the three points with any opponent, in any stadium.”

Last season the Owls – who host Ipswich Town at Hillsborough today – netted 66 goals in 46 games, Fernando Forestieri (15 goals) and Gary Hooper (13) leading the way.

This season, however, Forestieri has netted just three times, the same as summer signing Steven Fletcher. Hooper has four.

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“Since Brentford, we have been playing at a good level,” said Carvalhal. “We just need to improve the efficiency, because that’s been the problem so far.

“The goals we have scored at the moment don’t represent the quality of the football we are playing and the chances created.

“We have the strikers to score goals inside our house, and we are very happy with the work they are doing for the team.

“We hope they can start scoring more goals soon, not just the attackers but all the players. We believe they can all score, maybe not the goalkeeper.

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“What we can do is continue to create a dynamic and chances. We are training a lot to score more goals.

“But football is like this, sometimes strikers go six or seven games without scoring and in one moment something clicks and they start scoring again.

“We are waiting for this. At this time we are not scoring too many goals is a reality, but we believe we will soon.

“There will be a game where we only create two or three chances, and score two goals. At the moment, we are creating eight or nine good chances and only scoring once.”