Dean Saunders did some work!

Lets be fair, most of us thought the sum total of Souness`s "Bench Buddies" mob were only there to provide a bit of company when indulging in a jugfest. Not so according to Kieron Dyer. Apparently his recent spate of goals is down to the expert guidance of former goal machine Dean Saunders. Speaking to his pals at the Journal Kieron said:

Six goals is a good return for me this season, especially for someone who isn't supposed to be a decent finisher. It has always been highlighted as a weakness of mine. But I have worked hard over the last few seasons to improve and I think that Dean Saunders deserves a lot of credit for that. When Graeme Souness came to the club, I was getting so many one-on-one chances and I almost used to panic in front of goal. It was the same with Craig Bellamy. But we both put in hours and hours on the training pitch to rectify that with Dean and I have to give credit to him for that. He was a striker who excelled in tucking away chances like that and that practice has paid off for me.

Every time I have a chance now, I feel comfortable that I'm going to finish it off. When I was getting into goalscoring positions in the past, I was looking across for one of my team-mates to put away a tap-in. The first thought I had was to pass rather than shoot and perhaps I wasn't greedy enough. But now my mindset is to take a shot first and the goal (against AZ) was a nice little dink. It wasn't a mental thing as such, we solved it as the coaches looked at the technique and spotted something. I'm hopeful of getting a few more before the end of the campaign. I'm pleased with my goals ratio at the minute, but you always want more.'

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.