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FC Edmonton is in need of goals.
The biggest issue for the local club in the first half of the North American Soccer League season was their inability to put the ball in the net.
They finished the first half as the lowest-scoring team in the league, registering just 13 goals in 12 games.
Heading into the second half of the season, FC Edmonton is bringing in a couple of strikers, hoping to cure their scoring woes.
?We will have an announcement (Thursday) of another player that is arriving,? said FC Edmonton head coach Colin Miller, who was unable to disclose the player pending league approval. ?That will be good. He?s just coming off a little bit of a minor knee surgery, so he?ll be available about 10 days after arriving.
?We have also signed Anthony Adur. He?s a centre forward who we?re very excited to get in. He?s the same size as Michael Cox with just as much pace. He?s played in a number of different countries and has scored some goals. So we?re excited to get some new faces attacking-wise.?
FC Edmonton finished the first half of the NASL season with three wins, four losses and five ties. Their 14 points put them in a fifth-place tie with Minnesota United FC in the seven-team league.
The second half will feature eight teams, with the New York Cosmos joining the fold.
?We won?t change our approach defensively. I think we hammer that home on a daily basis about people doing the job defensively,? said Miller. ?Offensively we didn?t score a bad goal, but I would settle to have doubled our total, scoring some terrible goals. I?d settle for that, rather than having scored pretty goals all the time.
?I?m well aware of the fact we need to commit more bodies forward and our final pass in the final third has to be better. We need to hit the target. We?ve had some great situations and not hit the target. We?ve had some breakaways and not hit the target. So the players have to stand up and be counted for in terms of taking the responsibility to shoot more.?
Cox and Daryl Fordyce led the way for Edmonton in the first half with three goals apiece. Neil Hlavaty and Shaun Saiko each scored a pair.
In order for the club to contend for a second-half title and earn a berth into the championship game against the first-half winner, the Atlanta Silverbacks, they?ll need more production from everyone.
?The key for us is finding that gem that is going to score 10 goals for us,? said Miller. ?Fordyce was starting to score goals for us at the end of the season, creating things all the time.
?Some of the goals that Daryl scored have been fabulous, so we?re hoping to get him in the box a bit more. Saiko is due to hit a bit of form as far as hitting the target, because he wants to shoot all the time. He?s hitting the ball very well in training. So we want to commit more people forward at the same time.?
FC Edmonton kicks off the second half of the schedule Saturday in Carolina against the RailHawks. They?ll return to Edmonton a week later to host Minnesota United FC.
Carolina finished second in the first-half standings, a point back of the Silverbacks. If the Silverbacks go on to claim the second-half title as well, then the team with most cumulative points through the first and second half will join them in the final.
?I think for us, it was a huge learning curve in the first half of the season,? said Miller. ?We?re now well aware of the standard of the opposition. We?re well aware of the facilities around the league. I think we?re in a better place than we were at the start of the season.
?With the greatest respect we don?t fear anyone in the league. There might have been some apprehension as to whether we were at that level, and now we?ve proven that we can play at this level.?
derek.vandiest@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/SUNdvandiest
Source: http://www.edmontonsun.com/2013/07/31/fc-edmonton-coach-colin-miller-fucus-on-offensive-finish
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