Bobby Reid believes the end of his eight-hour wait for a goal at Cardiff City can rouse the club into a successful season in the Premier League.
The Bluebirds striker had started five games and come on as substitute in three more before his moment finally arrived and he scored in the 4-2 victory over Fulham at the weekend.
His goal put Cardiff ahead for the first time at 2-1 and paved the way for them to move off the bottom of the table and out of the relegation zone with their first win of the season.
“I think it’s massive for us,” said Reid, one of four Cardiff strikers who scored along with Josh Murphy, Callum Paterson and substitute Kadeem Harris.
“We’ve been working hard to get to this point. We’ve had a tough run of games but we’ve stuck at it.
“Internally, we have our objectives for what we want to achieve. The main one is staying in the Premier League and if we give it a right go I don’t see why we can’t do that.
“We know if we can play our game, keep getting chances and play like that we can stay up, easily.”
Two years ago, Reid, a £10m summer signing from Bristol City, was playing in the Championship alongside Tammy Abraham at Ashton Gate.
Abraham was considered the star turn, on loan from Chelsea, whilst Reid was simply the local Bristol lad made good.
Now, it’s Reid who is scoring in the Premier League, whilst Abraham is currently having to content himself with being back in the Championship having been loaned to Aston Villa.
But Reid has taken his time to find his feet as a scorer in the top level and admitted: “It was a relief for me. I’ve been working hard to get to this point for myself.
“You just carry on doing the right things (when you don’t score). As a forward player you can’t dwell on it too long because it can eat you up. You’ve got to keep getting in the right positions and keep getting the chances.
“They brought me here for a reason and I’ve got to keep showing that out there. It’s a step up for all of us.
“I want to play against the best, hopefully I can keep doing that and put the chances away. For any striker making a move to another club is massive. So, to get my first goal was big.
“It was massive for us, everyone was smiling in the changing room and is upbeat. We deserve it, we beat a good Fulham side and we were relentless in our attacking play.
“We’ve gone above Fulham now, it’s about putting points on the board and who knows what can happen?
“We can take confidence from that. I know we’ve got Liverpool next week but maybe if we can get a point there or a good performance we can take that into the home games after that.”
Manager Neil Warnock had appeared to undermine his players before the game by claiming he would not lay money on their survival chances.
But 25-year-old Reid insisted it was simply an old Warnock war tactic, diverting enemies to insignificant scuffling elsewhere, whilst the meaningful tussle was being prepared for.
“That stuff he jokes about takes a lot of pressure off us. He had everyone talking about him and his comments and then we go out and perform like that. We take it with a pinch of salt.
Cardiff next go to Liverpool, where the strength of any recovery will be severely tested. But at least they finally have some wind in their sails, whereas Fulham are simply being buffeted from one heavy defeat to the next.
It is one thing to concede five goals at home to Arsenal but quite another to let in four against Cardiff, who had only scored once in their previous three matches.
Slavisa Jokanovic’s team have now conceded 25 goals in nine games, more than anyone else in the table, but it is the way in which they surrendered than angered their German striker Andre Schurrle.
Having put Fulham ahead with a wonderful 30-yard strike, Schurrle soon found himself in a team trailing 2-1 and although Ryan Sessegnon equalised, Fulham’s feeble defending cost them in the second-half.
Schurrle admitted: “It’s now a pattern for us in every game.
“We have good moments and we score and get in front. But it doesn’t take us long to get a knock on the head and we concede a goal.
“It’s a big concern, for sure. We know that, the manager knows it, and the players know it. Everyone was quiet in the dressing room afterwards, because we know it’s not easy to get out of there.
“It’s the same thing every week and the goals are too easy for the opponents.”