Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has defended striker Papiss Cisse despite him not scoring since April and has also backed the Senegal international to find his scoring touch soon.
The last time Cisse found the back of the net for The Magpies in the Premier League was last season when he scored a last-minute winner against Fulham at St James Park, which gave them a vital 1-0 victory, but that goal was 10-games ago.
There was high hopes for the former-Freiburg man after he arrived in England as he scored a whopping 13 goals in 14 games, including an incredible brace against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
However, since then, Cisse’s form and goalscoring touch has dipped drastically, but his manager believes he will find that side of his game soon enough.
Pardew said: ‘It is a concern and we’ve worked hard to try and find avenues for Papiss to find a goal. Certainly on his side he’s working hard and he’ll have to concentrate now because he’ll come under pressure if he does score in the next couple of games.
‘We have Remy, we have [Yoan] Gouffran, we have players, that is the competition you need at the top. Therefore a goal for him would be a welcome addition to the squad.
‘There is always pressure on players. They have to perform. His work rate is very good. His focus needs now to be to score goals for us. Hopefully we can create more chances. In the last few games we’ve had more options, opportunities are starting to come his way.
‘He’s focused but he knows with every game that goes when a striker’s not scored, it’s difficult for them. Their mood changes, some games you can see they’re up and determined to get it right, other times they’re down but I just generally sense this week that he’s in a good place.
‘He wants a goal and he can see that we’re starting to create chances and he feels better about that. Hopefully we’ll give him three or four opportunities to score.
‘Confidence is difficult to assess with strikers, because you always assume they’re super-confident but it doesn’t always work like that and follow through. I remember Bobby Zamora used to score goals in batches, three or four or five, and then he’d go quiet but then he’d start to get them again.
‘I feel Papiss is like that. Once he gets a goal, suddenly he looks a different players. It’d be nice to see him score. Last year when he got that goal against Anzi, suddenly he came alive.
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt
