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KENWYNE Jones would love to hit the 20-goal mark for Sunderland this season.

The Trinidad & Tobago striker opened his account for the campaign with both goals in Saturday's 2-1 home win over Blackburn Rovers.

Jones may be rested for tonight's Carling Cup second round visit to Norwich City, but is eager to be up among the Premier League's top scorers.

The 24-year-old fired 10 top-flight goals last term in a season curtailed by a serious knee injury, and bagged seven in his debut campaign on Wearside the year before.

Now he's demanding more from himself.

Jones said: "I want to go much better than last season, and hopefully that will be at least 15 goals.

"I really want to fulfil my potential, and hopefully I will be able to do much more for the team – if I was being ambitious, then 20 goals would be great.

"I have given myself a start, but most importantly we have got six points on the board from the first three games. That was the target, and it stands us in good stead."

Gael Givet gave muscular Rovers a deserved lead at the Stadium of Light before Jones stole the headlines, latching onto Steed Malbranque's perfect pass to level before the interval, and then heading the winner from a great second-half cross from Lee Cattermole.

"The best way to thank Steed and Catts for that sort of service was to put the chances away," said Jones, whose last game before leaving Southampton to join Sunderland was against tonight's opponents Norwich.

"They were great passes – the kind any striker will be grateful for. It was a great win, but a tough afternoon."

Darren Bent could not find the target for the third consecutive game, but Jones is enthusiastic about their new strike partnership.

He said: "Darren gets loads of chances, and now teams will have more to think about. We have more of a goal threat.

"I know we had a lot of chances at Bolton the other week, but generally Sunderland don't get that many chances, and we have to give defences a harder time.

"So far we have four goals between us, so we have a good thing going."

The Wearsiders had to dig deep to withstand Blackburn's aerial bombardment, and Jones added: "You expect that from Big Sam's teams.

"We had to scrap for what we got, but it's going to take 11 of us working hard on the pitch every game to get victories."



Jones' two-goal glee
safc.com


Kenwyne Jones was delighted to get off the mark with a decisive goalscoring contribution against Blackburn at the SoL.

Jones netted twice in Sunderland's second home game of the new season - goals which proved crucial for the hosts.

Sunderland's joint top scorer said: "It's great to be off the mark with two goals in three games in two goals and I'm pretty happy for that.

"It definitely does good for my confidence, the games and two goals and I can only go on from here."

It was a deft ball by Steed Malbranque, back into the side after sitting out Tuesday's game against Chelsea, that gave Jones the opportunity to level for the home side.

"It was a great ball by Steed, I think I did well to get onto it and keep it and finish it off," he said.

"Then for the second goal I had a choice whether to put the ball to one side or the other and fortunately I made the right decision."

On the game, Jones acknowledged the fight put up by both teams throughout the match.

"It was a pretty tough game for us today, we were defending a lot of balls into the box from all angles - from the back, from the sides - and it was pretty tough for us today.

"They have a lot of guys who are probably about 6'5" but we dealt with it and came out on top in the end.

"It was nice for us to come out on top because we had a lot of games last season and the season before that where we didn't and it's nice to get a win."

Today's game puts Jones on par with new-signing Darren Bent at the top of the Sunderland scoring charts with two goals apiece.