Adelaide United defender Michael Marrone denies the club need to sign striking reinforcements in January, adamant the team has the goals in them to make a charge for the Hyundai A-League finals.
The Reds are one of the form sides in the competition right now, unbeaten in their last five matches to sit just outside the top six.
11 transfer window targets for Hyundai A-League
But they are still struggling to score goals, managing just 13 from as many games with only Newcastle Jets (nine) having managed less.
Only six players have managed to find the back of the net with Spaniard Pablo Sanchez the side’s leading scorer with just three, tied with own goals.
It’s led to speculation coach Guillermo Amor will look to bring in a proven scorer in the transfer window and while Marrone admits the decision is not “up to him”, he feels the Reds have the cattle to start scoring goals regularly.
“I see it in training every day. We’ve got Bruce [Djite], Eli [Babalj] coming back now and Pablo [Sanchez] as well,” Marrone told reporters on Tuesday.
“For me we’ve got enough but that’s not my department.
“We just have to make our chances count,” he added. “We had two or three good chances [against the Wanderers] which could have been goals any other day.
“We just need to be more clinical in the front third. But the good thing is we’re creating the chances, if we weren’t creating the chances like early in the season then maybe we’d be worried.
“The team’s confident we’re going to create those chances and put them away.”
Marrone himself has been a more prominent figure going forward in recent games.
He scored his first-ever A-League goal against Wellington on Boxing Day while should have won a penalty after a surging run against Western Sydney Wanderers on New Year’s Day.
“I’m getting in good positions but I think the whole team’s a little bit more confident,” the right-back explained.
“Now that we’re set up well from the back, we’re not conceding as many goals…the last five or six games we’ve only conceded a couple.
“We’re defending well, everyone’s comfortable going forward and the coach is encouraging us to get forward. We’re happy where we are as a team and individually everyone’s pretty confident as well.
“Collectively as a team, when you start getting results the confidence starts to lift and you see players start playing themselves into form and playing a lot better. We’re playing a lot better at the moment but we still need to get more results to get up the table.”
The Reds travel to Perth on Saturday night for a tricky clash with an improving Glory at nib Stadium.
Babalj is back in full training and could give Amor another striking option.
