Ricky - Sky Sports Expert

Not dampened but dry

Daggers have gone blunt, but Riky's still bullish

Posted: 26th November 2009 02:06

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Not dampened but dry

Lockwood: loanee down the left

We were top scorers in the league last season and started this season in similar fashion, hitting five past both Torquay and Shrewsbury and then three against Lincoln. But since then the goals have really dried up and we have now scored just 15 in our last 13 league matches.

Dagenham FanZoner Riky Butler
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So the biggest three days of our season so far ended with only one point and a drop down to fourth place in the table... but that has far from dampened my spirits!

Oh no! In fact if anything, our performances in the two games against Rochdale and Bournemouth, the top two sides in the league, have merely reinforced my belief that we are genuine promotion contenders.

We dominated for an hour against Rochdale last Saturday despite being without influential skipper Mark Arber, and if we had taken our chances we would have been three or four up and out of sight.

But credit to Dale, as they were the better team in the second half although the turning point was clearly when Stuey Thurgood limped off 20 minutes from time. The guy has been our best player this season with a series of superb midfield performances and it was interesting that within two minutes of him going off we went from 1-0 up to 2-1 down!

However, our unbeaten home record had to end at some point and as Rochdale were one of my tips for automatic promotion from the start, it is certainly no disgrace that it was them who ended it.

Now, the last thing we really needed after losing top spot was a trip to new leaders Bournemouth just three days later, especially as were travelled without Arbs again and Stuey.

However John Still had once again been busy in the loan market and brought in veteran Darren Currie from Chesterfield on Monday and he was thrown straight into the team at Dean Court the following evening.

In fact we started the match with four loanees in the side for the first time since we were promoted to the league two-and-a-half years ago. Now I have not been the biggest fan of the loan system but we really have had little choice recently what with all the injuries, suspensions and departures. I

In fact we were only able to name five substitutes at Bournemouth and they had made a total of only five league starts between them so we really were down to the bare bones.

In the circumstances we gave a good battling performance and fully deserved our point. We could maybe even have nicked it in the second half but a draw away at the leaders has to be considered a positive result and a second successive away clean sheet was also a great effort.

Awful

Currie looked a good addition to the squad - what he lacked in pace he certainly made up for with his ability on the ball - and seemed to strike up a good partnership with fellow loanee Matt Lockwood down the left-hand side. Special mention should also go to the 134 of us that made the three-hour trip in awful conditions to support the boys. Great effort lads (and lasses!).

However the thing that is worrying me at the moment is our lack of goals. We were top scorers in the league last season and started this season in similar fashion, hitting five past both Torquay and Shrewsbury and then three against Lincoln.

But since then the goals have really dried up and we have now scored just 15 in our last 13 league matches. We haven't managed more than two in a game since August and have only scored eight in nine away games. The strikers have really hit a lean patch with Benno finding the target just once in our last 10 league games and Josh Scott only three in the last 16.

Thankfully our defensive play has enabled us to keep picking up points and despite that lack of goals we still remain fourth highest scorers in the league behind Notts County, Rochdale and Chesterfield. But unless we start finding the net with more regularity again soon then I fear it will start to cost us points. It's not like we haven't been creating the chances.

We now face a weekend off after our FA Cup exit so we have a few extra days' rest before we meet Aldershot at home in our next game on Tuesday night.

The Shots have been enjoying a decent season so far and currently sit just outside the play-off places so it will not be an easy game, although I will be very surprised if we do not bounce back with the win that could, if other results go our way, send us back to the top of the table!

However since I started predicting the scores on here a few months ago I have only got one right so using reverse psychology I will predict a 2-1 defeat and hope my poor run continues!

Come on you Daggers!

Why have the Dagenham goals dried up? Are they going to give someone a hiding very soon? Let us know your views by filling in the feedback form below...

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