Jason Scotland today revealed that failing to score for a record eight games at Championship had not played on his mind.
But the 31-year-old, who put two goals beyond former England keeper Chris Kirkland in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Leicester City at Portman Road, said he felt he needed to contribute more.
“I can’t recall going eight matches at this level before without finding the back of the net,” said Scotland.
“Like all strikers I want to get goals and although it was not playing on my mind I wanted to score more - I wanted to contribute more.
“Defenders are quite right to feel that strikers are in the side to score and although no one was pointing any fingers it does add to the pressure for the back men.
“If the score is 0-0 and your opponents score it’s a defeat - and we’ve had enough of them.
“We all knew that we had to do better, and this is what we did on Saturday.”
Scotland’s front running partnership with Plymouth loanee Rory Fallon is looking as though it can bear fruit with the New Zealand international winning a high percentage of high balls and setting up his partner.
And Scotland agrees. “It went quite well at Preston the previous week with finding the net although I had a shot that went just wide.
“Rory played well again on Saturday and I feel we can complement each other and forge a successful partnership.“
Like the rest of the squad at Portman Road, Scotland is well aware of the pressure manager Roy Keane currently finds himself under.
“He knows it of course and we all do,” added Scotland.
“He’s in a results business so is no different from anybody else with managers recently been given the sack when they are winning games.
“As players we can only give 100 per cent and it does help when we are achieving results.
“If the manager is always chopping and changing as he looks to put out a winning team it adds a certain amount of pressure to the players to try and keep their places in the team.
“We all live and die by results.“
Scotland said that Saturday’s match was played in the worst conditions he could remember.
“I once played in snow for Swansea, but you could see some grass then,“ he said.
“When the referee took us off I did not expect to go back on again with heavy snow coming down.
“Conditions were horrendous although okay under foot, but three points are three points and that was our aim."