Depleted Eddies hope to end long scoreless drought in Jacksonville

Colin Miller

FC Edmonton has scored nine times in 13 NASL games. Take away a four-goal outburst against the New York Cosmos, and it’s just five goals in the other 12 matches.

The Eddies have lost by 1-0 scorelines in six NASL matches this year, including a current run of three in a row.

On Saturday, while many Canadians will be toasting this country’s 150th birthday, the Eddies might be doing the most Canadian thing of all. Visiting Florida. FCE will take on a Jacksonville Armada team that recorded (drumroll, please) two 1-0 wins over Edmonton to kick off the 2017 NASL season.

The Eddies will be without captain Nik Ledgerwood and fullback Netan Sansara, both out with long-term injury issues. Defender Adam Straith has joined Canada’s pre-Gold Cup camp. And midfield catalyst Dustin Corea is back in the United States, dealing with a foot injury and some passport paperwork.

“He’s still struggling,” FCE coach Colin Miller said of Corea. “He’s getting treatment in the United States and he’s reporting every day to our trainers.

“It’s the walking wounded at the moment,” Miller continued. “At one point, there was only 15 that could travel, and now, this morning, it jumped up to 16. There’s a few that are injured at the moment, and that’s where we’re at.”

The team was working on finishing chances in Wednesday’s training session. But, because of the injury situation, Miller admitted that he didn’t push his players to the limit. He simply can’t afford to lose another player to something like a  training ground knock.

“The guys, they know the script now,” said Miller. “We’re well aware of the situation we’re in at the moment. We’re well aware that this team [Jacksonville] has taken six points off of us this season. We deserved more out of both games that we played them, but we’re away from home, it’s a nice playing surface.

Miller said the mindset of the team will to repeat what it did four games ago, when it put four by the Cosmos out in Brooklyn.

“We’ve got a good pace on the players who are playing for us Saturday, pace that can hurt any team in this league,” said Miller. “So, that’s the view. It’s not going down there and damage limitation. We can’t afford to do that. The view is to start our season and pick up some very valuable points.”