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wants to keep in the goals on two fronts after reflecting on his return
to action following his recent long injury lay-off.
The affable
striker sustained a thigh injury early in pre-season that was serious
enough to prevent him from seeing first team action until the FC Twente
game in early November.
He had only been on against the Dutch
side for a few minutes when he hit the target, and he admits to being
surprised that he was going to see around 30 minutes of action that
night anyway.
"If you are coming back from a bad injury, like I
was, then you want to impress as soon as you can as well as seeing just
where your fitness is. Getting that goal when I came back straight away
was good for me, and everyone else!
"When you have been out for
so long it's good to get maybe 5 or 10 minutes when your first match
comes around, but surprisingly the gaffer gave me about 30 minutes. It
was good for seeing that my fitness levels were back to near their
best."
He has found the UEFA Cup to his liking, scoring in the
fine win over Schalke 04, adding his first league goal of the season
last Saturday with a classic centre-forward's header from Pablo
Zabaleta's excellent cross. So, what are the differences for a striker
from the Barclays Premier League to the UEFA Cup?
He continues,
"Playing in Europe is completely different to over here, teams from
other countries play very differently to how we are used to in the
Premier League. It's difficult with not knowing as much about the teams
as you do about those we play over here.
"The Premier League is
very hard, very tough and played at a high tempo, but playing a team
from anywhere in Europe can be a surprise because you don't know much
about how they play beforehand.
"You get more space in Europe but
in the Premier League it's very difficult. You know you have to be
strong and be quick - a bit of everything!"
Stephen Ireland has spoken of how he enjoys playing alongside the 30-year-old, and Benjani is pleased to return the compliment.
"We're
used to linking up in training and we've been able to apply it in
games, we need to keep doing it as well because we need to get some
points to move us up the table.
"I think I'm good at creating
space for others, holding it up and linking with the midfielders so
they can collect it off me, I think that's my strong point."
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