Dagenham & Redbridge striker Darren McQueen feels he flourished playing with Paul McCallum and Angelo Balanta behind him in their 5-2 victory over Ebbsfleet United in the FA Trophy.
The 25-year-old nabbed a brace and was named man of the match while the other goals came from goals from Paul McCallum, Angelo Balanta, and the returning Callum Reynolds as they sealed back-to-back victories in all competitions.
The former Dartford and Ebbsfleet attacker believes the switch to 3-5-2 helped them play more fluid football and allowed him to use his pace.
“The main thing for me was to get down the channels, we spoke before and we knew their centre-backs were slow, so I wanted to get off McCallum’s flicks and leave Ang (Angelo Balanta) to pick up the ball in the 10 role and dictate from there really.
“I almost had a hat-trick, but obviously I was offside, just little balls down the side and in a 3-5-2 that is my game as I don’t really need to come short when you’ve got players like McCallum and Balanta behind me.
“I can just play on the shoulder and I got some goals.”
McQueen, who nabbed his first two goals for the club after a slow start to the campaign, praised the performance especially the wing-backs Liam Gordon and Andrew Eleftheriou.
“Tired, but I thought it was a good performance from us, I thought everyone was brilliant and I think the only downside would be the two goals that we conceded,” McQueen said.
“They weren’t great, but it was good to get back-to-back wins as I think we’ve only done that once so far this season, so that was good for our confidence and we can gain some momentum now.
“Liam (Gordon) coming in and also Andy I thought they were brilliant today (Saturday), they’ve got a lot of energy, a lot of pace, and created a lot of chances for myself, Angelo Balanta and Paul McCalllum and we were very clinical.”
The striker netted his two goals in four minutes to help ramp up the score to a 5-2 score line.
“Like I've said before, I think I just needed the first one to get myself going, and I got two in four minutes so hopefully now I can take that into the league and carry on where I have left off today.”
Dagenham will now make the trip to Dover Athletic on Boxing Day before then hosting Bromley on Monday, December 28.
“We’ve got a lot of games coming up, but I feel like we’re going into those games with a lot of confidence off the back of these two results.
“We need to keep going and keep pushing to get to where we want to be.”
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