Newcastle striker Joel Griffiths has thrown his support behind their marquee signing Ecuadorian international Edmundo Zura saying he has ‘all the attributes’ to be a success in the Hyundai A-League.
After coming to the club with a big reputation, Zura has hardly set the league on fire since joining the Jets at the start of the season. He has shown glimpses of what he can offer but is still finding his feet in the Australian game where he is required to play a more all-round game including defend rather than sit on the halfway line and attack on the counter.
Griffiths, who admits he hates playing up front as the lone striker, said Zura has shown at training what great skills he has and says the Ecuadorian just needs a goal to give his confidence a boost and he is confident things will change from that point.
“Hopefully Zura will be fit this weekend and he can play up front with me,” Griffiths told Sportal
“The combination with him at training is good. The more he speaks English the better he is going to get and hopefully a goal will come soon and the sooner the better because he does have all the attributes to be successful in the A-League.”
Griffiths, last year’s Golden Boot winner, poked home his third goal of this campaign to steer the Jets to their first win of this season with a 1-0 victory over the Queensland Roar at Suncorp Stadium and he is hoping the win will be enough to ignite Newcastle’s title defence after a lacklustre start to their season.
“The signs are positive,” he said. “If we win ugly like we did last weekend hopefully we can start winning pretty and start knocking in goals and start creating a chance for ourselves to be thereabouts.”
“Obviously the benchmarks are Sydney and Melbourne – on paper they are great attacking sides and we are not there yet but hopefully we are on our way.”
The Jets take on Adelaide United this Saturday night at Hindmarsh Stadium. The Hyundai A-League match will be preceded by the opening round of the National Youth League with a star-studded Newcastle team taking on an equally impressive Adelaide squad from 3.45pm.
