Sydney FC youngster George Blackwood has set his sights on beefing up his goal tally following his maiden strike for the Sky Blues at the weekend.
Blackwood opened his Hyundai A-League account from distance, hitting the first goal of the match in his side’s draw against the Central Coast Mariners in Gosford.
With three rounds of the regular season remaining and Graham Arnold’s side desperate to force their way back into the top six, the 18-year-old has set himself the target of scoring more important goals before the season ends.
“It was good, it was a great feeling to score,” Blackwood said.
“I can’t really remember what happened [after the ball hit the net] I just sort of lost it a bit, I couldn’t really contain myself.
“It was definitely good to get the monkey off my back and I’m looking forward to scoring a lot more for Sydney FC, hopefully I can get some more goals this season as well.
“I think I definitely need to build on how I played on the weekend,” he continued.
“I need to keep on improving and playing better and keep creating goals and scoring goals. I think there’s a lot to improve on so we’ll see how we go.
“I think I can always improve on my finishing, my strength and my fitness, so I just need to keep working on everything as a whole and developing myself as a player and I will be under the coaches that we have here.”
The Sky Blues face the third placed Brisbane Roar on Saturday at Suncorp Stadium, and Blackwood has labelled the clash a “Grand Final” with Sydney FC sitting three points outside the top six.
“It’s definitely a must win game, it’s like a Grand Final for us,” Blackwood said.
“We’ve really got to win and we’re all confident going in to the game. We just have to fight at the weekend and if we fight then I think we have the quality to win the game definitely.
“I think the key is just to really work hard and put in 100%, battle and win every second ball. I think once we win every second ball our quality will take over and if we do that we have a really good chance of winning this weekend.
“If we win all three games there’s every chance that other teams could slip up and we just really need to put everything in to these last three games, do everything we can to win them and hopefully everything else will take care of itself.”
Sydney FC travel to face Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday 26 March (kick off 7:30pm AEDT). Catch the match live on Fox Sports 4, listen live on ABC Grandstand or follow @SydneyFC on Twitter for updates.
