Bristol City striker confident of returning soon
Bristol City striker Nicky Maynard says he is determined to make his return from a long-term injury before the busy Christmas period.
The attacker was the Football League Championship club's top scorer with 21 goals in the 2009-10 season, but has not played since the end of last term due to a severe knee injury.
However, the 23-year-old is confident of making an imminent return to first-team football, and believes he can still end the season at the top of the club's scoring charts even though he has missed a large chunk of the campaign.
Maynard will not have too many goals to catch up on, however, as leading scorer Jon Stead has netted just five times for struggling Bristol this season.
He told the BBC, "I've always said I'll be back before Christmas and the way things are going I'm way on schedule for that. Hopefully, in a few weeks time I can get a reserve game under my belt.
"I do expect to get double figures, I'll be disappointed if I don't. When I do make my first appearance I will be on point and I do expect to be the club's leading goal scorer at the end of the season."
Maynard, who joined Bristol from Crewe Alexandra in July 2008 for a club-record fee of 2.25 million pounds, is no stranger to long periods of time out of action, having broken his leg while with his previous club. He admitted that the earlier injury has helped
him understand how to best recover from such problems.
"I've got no doubts that I'll come back as good, if not better. I was a bit weaker around the knee areas anyway so just doing the extra work in the gym can help me in the long run which is a bonus."
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