Ferguson’s fired up to get back on goals trail

WITH nine goals impressively amassed before Hallowe’en, hitting double figures appeared a formality for Lewis Ferguson this season.

If only. Six months on, the midfielder is still waiting. His personal example sums up the scoring troubles endured by Aberdeen.

The Pittodrie side have managed just one goal in their last ten Premiership games. It is a statistic Ferguson is eager to see positively amended in today’s visit to St Johnstone before Stephen Glass begins work as manager next week.

Under the interim control of Paul Sheerin, Aberdeen created numerous chances in last Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie at Dumbarton but had to rely on a late goal from substitute Callum Hendry to secure progress into the fourth round. Of course, loanee Hendry is unavailable to play against his parent club this afternoon.

Ferguson feels progress is being made in slowly restoring potency. And he argues that final scoring touch is something that will come naturally as confidence rises.

It certainly did for the 21-year-old during the early weeks of the campaign when he notched a mixture of penalties and goals from open play.

‘I was really enjoying it, I was scoring goals and we were playing well,’ reflected Ferguson (below). ‘It is difficult and at times you need one to come off your backside, but unfortunately it hasn’t happened.

‘I’ve not had many chances apart from the one last weekend where the goalkeeper has made a brilliant save.

‘There have been a few here and there where I should have scored, but you need little things to go your way. I need to get back on the scoresheet after such a long run.

‘As a team, we have struggled trying to hit the back of the net recently. Our buildup play has been pretty good, but we have been struggling with that last bit of the puzzle, that bit in the final third.

‘The longer games go on and we haven’t scored, we start to get a bit more nervous and it eats away. We need to put that to the side, keep working on our build-up play and hopefully the goals will come.

‘We just need to be a bit more calm and composed.

‘It should come natural to a forwardthinking player, hitting the back of the net. Confidence obviously affects that.’

Ferguson cited the example of how Thomas Tuchel has been attempting to get a £48million striker back in the groove.

‘I heard the Chelsea manager talk about Timo Werner the other day,’ added the Scotland Under-21 cap.

‘He has obviously not scored in a while and Tuchel sent him in from training because he wanted to do extra shooting.

‘He said it would come naturally and I think it does. That’s a top manager saying that.

‘Once the confidence is high, you can go and score more often because we are creating more chances at the moment. We are just not managing to find the back of the net.’

The arrival of specialist forward coach Allan Russell could also help. He will join up with Glass when the new manager gets to work on Tuesday after completing his spell in quarantine.

‘I spoke to him briefly over the phone the other day,’ said Ferguson of Glass.

‘I think the other boys have spoken to him as well. I spoke to him for ten or 15 minutes and we chatted about football, how it has been and how he sees things going forward. It was very positive and we are looking forward to getting him in.

‘He spoke about the rest of this season and next season and we really need to knuckle down over these last five games because they are massive for us.

‘If we want to go on and achieve third spot then we are going to need to win most of the games and hope other results go our way. We need to focus on this season before we start thinking about the next.’ With a seven-point gap to Hibernian, Aberdeen badly need to give Glass a win as he watches coverage from Perth in his hotel room. ‘The team knows he will be keeping a close eye on us and we need to go and perform for ourselves and for him — to try and impress, so when he does come in he has a good understanding of what we are all about,’ said Ferguson.

‘Hibs are in a good position, but we just need to focus on ourselves and try to pick up as many points as possible to see where it takes us.’