Source: Northern_Echo
Coyne backs goal-shy strikers to come good
DANNY COYNE has admitted the club's lack of a cutting edge in front of goal is proving costly in their ambition to finish the season in a play-off place. Middlesbrough have scored only once from open play in the last five matches and the club's strikers have registered only once in eight games Chris Killen in the 2-1 win over Barnsley. On Saturday they had around half a dozen chances after the break to claim at least a point against play-off rivals Cardiff City, but a combination of good goalkeeping and poor finishing saw them drop to five points off the top seven. The keeper insists confidence has never been an issue with the strikers at Gordon Strachan's disposal, but with only 11 games left a lack of goals could see Boro's season end with a whimper. Sometimes it just doesn't go in you don't know why and when it does go in it's disallowed, said Coyne, in reference to David Wheater's second half header that was disallowed for a Leroy Lita handball. It's just one of those things and we have to make sure we put it right and start putting the ball in the net. The strikers are confident enough in their own ability they're creating chances and making the keeper make saves. It's not like we're missing chances all the time and not making the opposition keeper work I thought the Cardiff keeper was man of the match so we should take the positives from that. We just need to turn those chances into goals and we'll be there. With time running out, Boro need to put together a string of wins to have any chance of sneaking into the top six. Coyne sees the lack of goals as key with the former Tranmere goalkeeper seeing many positives in the way the side are currently playing. We've just got pick ourselves up and go on a run again, said the 36-year-old. We need to win the majority of our games and with performances like that I don't see why we can't. We just need to put the ball in the back of the net because we are keeping everything else tight. It's just losing one scrappy goal every now and then. If we stamp that out then we'd be there or thereabouts. Confidence is not a problem you can see that in the way we play. Everybody is working hard and working for each other. Everyone is together and we should have got something out of the game. We have to start putting teams on the back-foot from the start.