By Chris Slavin
Cody McDonald struck his third goal in five games in the Emirates FA Cup win against Charlton Athletic yesterday – and he’s relishing his flourishing strike partnership with Lyle Taylor.
The 31-year-old arrived at Wimbledon in the summer with a prolific goals record, but up until November he had only scored in the Checkatrade Trophy against Barnet.
However, it’s a completely different scenario now, summed up by his forward display yesterday, as Cody and Lyle put League One high-flyers Charlton to the sword.
“Of course, it was frustrating,” said Cody. “I want to be helping the team out as much as I can by scoring goals. I will always work hard. I’m not going to play brilliant every week, but I will always give 110 per cent. At the moment, something has clicked and I’m really enjoying it, which is the main thing. When you are enjoying your football, everything starts to take care of itself.
“I’m really enjoying playing up there with Lyle and we are doing our best for the team at the moment and thankfully it is coming off. We will keeping working hard for the team and hopefully there will be some more good performances along the way. It is quite evident that we like to play two up front. That is our strength. It’s nice to be a part of something that is going in the right direction.
“Over the last five or six weeks there have been big signs of improvement. Last week against Walsall was disappointing, but the performance was not bad. We just started sloppy and at this level you get punished. We learned from that and started really fast. We really got into them and got the early goal. They got back into it, but we showed great character to go on and win the game.”
Of course, tonight at 7.10 pm is the live Emirates FA Cup third round draw on BBC Two and BT Sport. With the Premier League elite in the draw for the first time, Cody would love a crack at Arsenal in the next round! Hear more from Cody about the FA Cup by clicking on the video link below.