Chesterfield striker had full 'belief' that goals would come after hat-trick for Accrington Stanley against Swindon Town
Hat-trick hero Paddy Madden said he always had ‘belief’ that the goals would come.
The striker, who is on loan at Accrington Stanley for the season from Chesterfield, netted a treble and he got an assist as they hammered 10-man high-flyers Swindon Town on Saturday.
The Spireites felt that Madden, 35, would be better off playing football elsewhere this season and he joined Stanley in August. The forward had failed to score in six league appearances at his new club before his hat-trick got him up and running.
“Nice day, it has been coming,” Madden said. “I don’t know what it is but some teams I go to, it usually takes me a while to score, I don’t know why but once they come, fingers crossed, they keep coming.”
When asked if his lack of goals had been playing on his mind, he replied: "To be fair, I think I am past that. If I was a bit younger it would probably have got to me. I always have belief in myself that they will come back and thankfully they have come back today.”
Video clips of his first goal, where he lobbed Swindon goalkeeper Connor Ripley from distance with a stunning first-time strike, were shared around social media over the weekend. For someone who had not scored this season, it was not a finish of a man struggling with confidence.
He laughed: "I don’t usually score from that far out! I just had a quick look and saw the keeper was off his line so I thought ‘why not.’ Thankfully I connected with it and thankfully it went in.”
His other two goals from inside the box were more like the many goals he has bagged in his career. He said: "They are the ones that people will class as me, arriving in the box late.”
Madden’s performance drew praise from Accrington Stanley manager John Doolan, but he was not surprised.
He added: "I am very pleased because that is what strikers do, don’t they, they live off goals, chances and assists. He has put them away today but his track record shows that he always scores goals wherever he has gone. It was always going to happen. We know what we brought in. We knew he had to get up to speed and you have to give him time to do that. He had training leg but he didn’t have game legs. That performance today was great.”