HARD WORK REAPS REWARDS AS BROWN EYES INTERNATIONAL CAP
JACOB Brown believes he is starting to reap the rewards of his relentless work ethic both on and off the field.
The Stoke City forward is gearing up for a possible international debut for Scotland on Friday after being included in Steve Clarke’s squad for the first time ahead of a crucial World Cup qualifying double-header against Moldova and Denmark over the next seven days.
Brown has enjoyed an impressive run of form at club level, having netted two goals and registered two assists in his last three outings for the Potters.
Speaking prior to linking up with Scotland this week, the 22-yearold lifted the lid on the factors he believes have been behind his onfield improvements.
“I think it is down to a number of things really,” he said. “Obviously, this pre-season I put a lot of extra work in on so many aspects of my game and I have really felt the benefits of that.
”I felt really confident coming into the season and that has helped me enormously - the work I have done behind the scenes has been tireless really.
“My team-mates have been fantastic with me, helping me, and the coaching staff and analysis guys have all worked closely with me too, to try and improve aspects of my game.
“I want to score goals, and last season I wasn’t able to get as many as I would have liked to have done.
“But I have really got the buzz for it now, I have managed a couple over the last few weeks and I things are coming together nicely for me.
“I love working and learning, and there are so many people at this club who I can take inspiration from, and listen too - I am absorbing as much as I can from them.”
Michael O’neill’s men bounced back from a challenging period by notching up successive away victories prior to the break, with 1-0 victories over Blackpool and Luton Town elevating the side back into the play-off places.
“It is where we want to be, we feel we are good enough to challenge this season and that has been our target right from the off,” he added.
“It is fair to say that our ambition this season is to try and push for promotion if we can, although we know how difficult this league is.
“You can see how tight the league is, from fourth place to 15th I think there are only a handful of points in it.
“It’s important not to get too caught up in the emotions of where you are in the table, because it can change drastically over a couple of days - just as it has for us recently.
“We have been fourth, then we had a disappointing week or so where we dropped down, and now we are back in fifth again.
“All we can do is keep working on the things the management team are doing with us, and keep doing everything in our power to keep improving as individuals, and as a group.”