More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
We’re playing two of my former clubs in the next two games but my main focus is on doing a job for this team and not about the past.
I feel like I have got a lot to prove, both for different reasons, but most importantly we just want to get results.
I was at Wycombe for half a season but sometimes things don’t work out how you want them to.
The manager Gareth Ainsworth was good with me, I enjoyed my time there and I liked him. There were times where I might have been struggling but he would always chat to me and put his arm around me.
I played against them for Bristol Rovers last season, he chatted to me and said he had followed how I was getting on. It is good that he still cares.
I played alongside Adebayo Akinfenwa while at Wycombe and I still keep in touch with him. He is a great role model, on and off the pitch, and it will be good to see him again at the weekend.
He plays to his strengths, he knows what he can do, and he brings so many other people into the game. For people like me it is good to play with someone like that, to have a target man to work off. In a way, he is similar to Mikael Mandron here. I would say Mandron is a little more mobile, no disrespect to Bayo! He is similar in the way you can work off them and can pick things up.
I still know a lot of the other Wycombe players from when I was there. I know their skipper Joe Jacobson and Anthony Stewart, we’re quite close.
Joe got a hat-trick at the weekend, showing his technical ability from deliveries. He was always taking free-kicks, corners and penalties when I was there. He scored direct from two corners on Saturday, I am not sure if he meant them, but fair play, he is doing well.
As a team they are doing well and are top of the league but it is still early on and you can’t judge anything yet.
On Tuesday we face another of my former teams, Bristol Rovers, where I played last season on loan.
There was a big contrast with the first half to the second half of the season, in terms of game time.
I maybe started two league games in the first half of the season and played in all of the Trophy games. It was quite tough, most of the league games I was coming on for 10-15 minutes so it was hard to get fitness and sharpness, as well as frustrating as you just want to be playing.
In the second half of the season when Graham Coughlan took over, he chucked me straight in with his first game, Sunderland away. I felt I did well in that game, I played upfront on my own and caused them a few problems. That was the turning point for me in the season.
I enjoyed it in Bristol and I was staying with Tareiq Holmes-Dennis, who I knew previously.
The start of the season was quite tough but he helped me get through it. He was injured and we carried each other through.
He got fit just about the time I was playing, coming back after over a year out with a bad knee injury. We were both playing at the same time and in his second game back I set him up and he scored. The game after that he set me up and I scored. He is injured at the moment but it will be good to catch up with him.
Watford have been good since coming here on loan, they’ve been keeping in touch and I have spoken to them after almost every game. They have been getting clips, and training data, they are good with that. They keep a track of all the players out on loan.
It was good to see them at Priestfield on Tuesday, for the practice match. It was the same under-23s group that I spent pre-season with and I stayed to watch it after my gym session.
It’s more serious playing league football, you have players who are playing for their lives, they have to pay their mortgages. In the 23s it is mainly about development, players will try things you wouldn’t normally risk.
There is that competitive side as well. You feel like you are playing for something in the league, you train during the week and you look forward to the Saturday.
I am not sure if the fans have a song for me yet, I’ve not heard one, but my name is not the easiest to come up with a song! If I keep scoring hopefully they will think of one.
I am enjoying it here, the manager has shown faith in me, he’s given me minutes on the pitch and time to get fit and play. I thank him for that.
I have had three 90 minutes now, on the bounce. I am definitely feeling stronger, the later each game goes on I feel I can last a little longer. I’m fitter and stronger, which is good.
I got another goal last Saturday and that’s good for my own confidence as well to score goals.
I have not seen the replay but Max Ehmer said it was already in before I scored, he’s trying to claim it, but I made sure. They have given it to me and I’ll take it.
A goal is a goal, whether it’s from 30 yards or two yards, as a striker you just want to put it in the net.
