Dyer's added finishing touch

[kennethlindheim]

The Graeme Souness era is remembered with very little affection at St James's Park but Kieron Dyer last night credited a much-maligned regime with inspiring his reinvention as a reliable goalscorer.

The midfielder has never scored more than six times in a season during his seven-and-a-half year career in the North-East but, having equalled his best-ever total during this week's Uefa Cup win against AZ Alkmaar, Dyer is determined to ensure this is his most productive campaign yet in Newcastle colours.

While it is Glenn Roeder who is benefiting from the 28-year-old's new-found ruthlessness, it seems as though it was his predecessor's coaching team who did the most to address the greatest failing in the player's game. Dyer last night recalled the tireless hours he spent working with Dean Saunders in special sessions designed to improve his finishing - and admitted he owed the Welshman a great debt for solving his well-documented goalscoring problems.

"Six goals is a good return for me this season, especially for someone who isn't supposed to be a decent finisher," said the Gallowgate favourite, who will have at least 10 games to break the seven-goal barrier for the first time since his £6.5m move from Ipswich.

"It has always been highlighted as a weakness of mine. But I have worked hard over the last few seasons to improve and I think that Dean Saunders deserves a lot of credit for that. When Graeme Souness came to the club, I was getting so many one-on-one chances and I almost used to panic in front of goal.

"It was the same with Craig Bellamy. But we both put in hours and hours on the training pitch to rectify that with Dean and I have to give credit to him for that. He was a striker who excelled in tucking away chances like that and that practice has paid off for me. Every time I have a chance now, I feel comfortable that I'm going to finish it off."

Dyer demonstrated his renewed confidence when he found himself one-on-one with AZ keeper Boy Waterman during Newcastle's 4-1 win against the Eredivisie outfit. A chance he would once have wasted was converted with relish to put Roeder's team 2-0 up.

"When I was getting into goalscoring positions in the past, I was looking across for one of my team-mates to put away a tap-in," he explained. "The first thought I had was to pass rather than shoot and perhaps I wasn't greedy enough. But now my mindset is to take a shot first and the goal (against AZ) was a nice little dink. It wasn't a mental thing as such, we solved it as the coaches looked at the technique and spotted something."

Such improvements have enabled Dyer to score six times in 19 first-team starts this season. It is the fourth time he has reached such a total but such is his appetite for goals these days, he is far from satisfied.

"I'm hopeful of getting a few more before the end of the campaign," he added. "I'm pleased with my goals ratio at the minute, but you always want more."

icNewcastle - Kieron's added finishing touch