Cobblers V Crewe Alexandra. Adebayo Akinfenwa.
ONLY two players in the fourth tier of English football have scored more league goals than Adebayo Akinfenwa, and the bad news for Bristol Rovers is that Aidy Boothroyd thinks his powerful number 10 can get even better.
Akinfenwa had arguably his best game of the season at Cheltenham at the weekend, scoring a fine goal and delivering a sweat-soaked performance of such intensity that he was on his knees by the final whistle.
This is the new Akinfenwa. The Akinfenwa whose best friend in the gym is the rowing machine, who has shed a stone-and-a-half of weight and looks in better condition than he has at any time during either of his two spells as a Cobbler.
All of which has left Boothroyd, who told the big man he was simply too big upon arrival at Sixfields, glowing in appreciation.
“If you’re judging a team on a willingness and a want to do it then our centre-forward epitomises that,” he said.
“Too often good players at clubs sometimes stay too long and they become more important than or even bigger than the club itself.
“In Bayo we’ve got a player who, when people think about Northampton, they think about him, but I’ve had a good chat with him, an honest chat with him.
“When I first got here I told him he wasn’t fit enough and that he could only play one way.
“And then I look at this guy on Saturday, who looks like his younger, slimmer brother and he’s chasing everything around and that goal he got, you won’t see a better goal than that.
“It was a proper goalscorer’s goal against a very good goalkeeper and I thought he was absolutely brilliant at Cheltenham.
“He did his usual job of beating the two centre-halves up but he also brought others into play, he got in behind, he did the defending work you need to do, he was fantastic.
“Do you give him a pat on the back? Of course you do, but at the same time you tell him that if he lost another half a stone he’d be even better.”
Akinfenwa turns 30 at the end of the season, a factor which might limit the number of close-season suitors should he continue his scoring streak.
Boothroyd thinks he can get plenty more good years out of the striker, who was one of 11 to set the required standard at Whaddon Road.
“I think he can get even better,” he said. “I want him to have an Indian summer to his career. He can keep playing a lot longer and he can score more goals than he’s got.
“It isn’t all about him but that was as good a performance as I’ve seen from a centre-forward.
“When you go through the whole team at Cheltenham, I can’t pick a bad performance out of the entire 11 and we need to be consistent now.
“We’ve got to get to that level and if we do we’ll start picking up points regularly.”
Such points need to now replace the pats on the back the team received on Saturday, nice as they are.
“When you have the opposition manager saying that his team were fortunate to get a point, then that’s one of those pats on the back that you need from time to time,” Boothroyd said.
“It’s a real credit to the players and the staff to hear something like that, especially when things aren’t going for you.
“My dad told me once, though, that if you pat someone on the back you’re not far away from kicking them up the backside.
“Pats on the back are all very nice but points on the board are more important and we’ve got an opportunity to do it because we’ve got this run of games.
“We could turn Saturday’s draw into the start of a good run because we’ve got a lot of games coming up.”
Source:http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/cobblers/northampton-town-hard-work-paying-off-for-akinfenwa-to-the-delight-of-boothroyd-1-3591451
Akinfenwa had arguably his best game of the season at Cheltenham at the weekend, scoring a fine goal and delivering a sweat-soaked performance of such intensity that he was on his knees by the final whistle.
This is the new Akinfenwa. The Akinfenwa whose best friend in the gym is the rowing machine, who has shed a stone-and-a-half of weight and looks in better condition than he has at any time during either of his two spells as a Cobbler.
All of which has left Boothroyd, who told the big man he was simply too big upon arrival at Sixfields, glowing in appreciation.
“If you’re judging a team on a willingness and a want to do it then our centre-forward epitomises that,” he said.
“Too often good players at clubs sometimes stay too long and they become more important than or even bigger than the club itself.
“In Bayo we’ve got a player who, when people think about Northampton, they think about him, but I’ve had a good chat with him, an honest chat with him.
“When I first got here I told him he wasn’t fit enough and that he could only play one way.
“And then I look at this guy on Saturday, who looks like his younger, slimmer brother and he’s chasing everything around and that goal he got, you won’t see a better goal than that.
“It was a proper goalscorer’s goal against a very good goalkeeper and I thought he was absolutely brilliant at Cheltenham.
“He did his usual job of beating the two centre-halves up but he also brought others into play, he got in behind, he did the defending work you need to do, he was fantastic.
“Do you give him a pat on the back? Of course you do, but at the same time you tell him that if he lost another half a stone he’d be even better.”
Akinfenwa turns 30 at the end of the season, a factor which might limit the number of close-season suitors should he continue his scoring streak.
Boothroyd thinks he can get plenty more good years out of the striker, who was one of 11 to set the required standard at Whaddon Road.
“I think he can get even better,” he said. “I want him to have an Indian summer to his career. He can keep playing a lot longer and he can score more goals than he’s got.
“It isn’t all about him but that was as good a performance as I’ve seen from a centre-forward.
“When you go through the whole team at Cheltenham, I can’t pick a bad performance out of the entire 11 and we need to be consistent now.
“We’ve got to get to that level and if we do we’ll start picking up points regularly.”
Such points need to now replace the pats on the back the team received on Saturday, nice as they are.
“When you have the opposition manager saying that his team were fortunate to get a point, then that’s one of those pats on the back that you need from time to time,” Boothroyd said.
“It’s a real credit to the players and the staff to hear something like that, especially when things aren’t going for you.
“My dad told me once, though, that if you pat someone on the back you’re not far away from kicking them up the backside.
“Pats on the back are all very nice but points on the board are more important and we’ve got an opportunity to do it because we’ve got this run of games.
“We could turn Saturday’s draw into the start of a good run because we’ve got a lot of games coming up.”
Source:http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/cobblers/northampton-town-hard-work-paying-off-for-akinfenwa-to-the-delight-of-boothroyd-1-3591451
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