Ryan Pyette -
The London Free Press -

Andrew Loague is searching everywhere for a solution.

His London City soccer side hasn’t scored enough. Just a half-dozen goals.

In five games, they haven’t scored first.

“I said jokingly to Ryan (City GM Ryan Gauss) I’ve been putting myself in at the end of a few games for the last 10 minutes or so,” player-coach Loague said, “but if it takes me playing more and earlier to get that (first) goal, maybe that’s what we should do.” That’s no punch line. Loague has it in him.

He was one of the most gifted goal scorers in his time spent in the Canadian Soccer League when he played on a regular basis.

But there is no magic recipe to jumping out to a lead. This is for the guys on the field to fix.

“We’ve been working on it a lot this week,” said Loague, whose squad faces the North York Astros on Friday and heads to Brampton on Sunday. “It’s about being focused right from the start. Teams aren’t putting 11 guys behind the ball when they score, but we’ve got to come out with a little more spark.” There’s one key guy that has to be heard from on the scoreesheet this season.

Mexican striker Kevin Zimmermann scored a ton of goals with the USL Premier Development League FC London team last summer. Why is he struggling to find the net in the CSL?

“I know Kevin’s been getting frustrated but I’ve told all these guys, the year I finished second in scoring in this league, I didn’t score the first seven games,” Loague said. “It takes some time. We’ve been using Kevin as a target man and having guys run off him. But at the same time, Kevin can’t just make a touch and then stand there. He has to move into open spaces and we’ve talked about keeping things moving.” Loague chalks up the early offensive issues to chemistry. Guys are still getting to know each other on the field. Tom Beattie has done a nice job scoring of well-timed set pieces, but it’s not enough to score off free kicks.

“We have to find another way — I had two or three weeks at the start to put these guys together and no exhibition games,” he said. “We’re only five games in. We have 23 guys and only three or four of them had ever played together before. I’ve seen flashes of the midfield putting it together, especially in the second half (of a 4-0 loss to the Serbian White Eagles).

“I’m happy with the ways things look. I’m positive about it. We just have to score first. We can’t fall behind the good teams and wait for free kicks because all those chances likely won’t come.” Remarkably, City has a win and points in three games despite having to play catch-up most of the time.

“People look at the standings and see us near the bottom and I tell them don’t panic,” Gauss said. “We have games in hand on the teams ahead of us. I’ve been very careful with making predictions, but with the team we have, if we’re not in at least eighth (of 13 teams) by the end of it and don’t make the playoffs, it’ll be a disappointment.”

City doesn’t see itself as having an anemic offence and Loague is an offensive-minded coach. There’s a sense that balls will start going in — early and often.

“Some of that high-end talent is at home right now. Midfielder Winston Griffiths has returned to Jamaica to sort out personal matters. “He’s due back for our game July 10th. We knew when we signed him that he could miss a few. But he’s been calling someone on the team after every game to find out how we did.”

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IF YOU GO

Next: London City vs. North York Astros, Friday, 8:40 p.m. at Cove Road