Ipswich Town striker Daryl Murphy wants to hit the magic 20-goal mark sooner rather than later.

The Championship’s leading scorer took his tally for the campaign to 19 with a headed equaliser in Tuesday night’s 2-1 home win over Sheffield Wednesday.

One more and he’d become the first Blues player to notch 20 league goals in a season since David Johnson in the promotion term of 1999/00.

“I want to get there as soon as I can and then get even more from there,” said the 31-year-old Irishman, speaking ahead of tomorrow’s match at Fulham.

“I always liked to think that I would get 20 in a season at some stage in my career. I know I’ve never been prolific, but any time I’ve had a run of games as a striker, I’ve scored a decent amount. I always knew it was in there.”

To say that Murphy has never been prolific before now is something of an understatement. In the eight seasons before he became a permanent Blues player last summer, he scored 34 goals in 336 appearances for Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, Celtic, Ipswich and the Republic of Ireland – that’s a rate of 0.1 goals per game.

“Just because of the size of me, a lot of managers probably saw me as a target man whose role was to link up the play,” he said. “There were times when I played on the left of midfield and had to do a job for the team.

“The gaffer has shown real faith in me though and when he gave me the number nine shirt that gave me a real boost in confidence.

“Getting a permanent deal and knowing the family would be settled in the area has helped, as has working with TC (assistant manager Terry Connor)

“I’ll say this; If I’d have trained with him when I first came over to England, I could have been a better player than I am now because he’s really done wonders for me finishing wise. He goes into details about the runs you make and a lot of my goals have come as a direct result of that. I can’t praise him enough.”

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