Fleetwood Town loanee wants to learn from the club's leading scorer

Madden made history in midweek by becoming the club’s record goalscorer in the EFL, reaching 42 goals with his strike against Doncaster Rovers: a tally he’ll be hoping to add to this afternoon against Plymouth Argyle.

For Vassell, who is on loan at Highbury from Rotherham United, it’s less about getting one up on his teammate and more about picking up bits from his game.

He said: “It’s not as cut-throat as that, it’s not like I’m looking at Pad and I want to take him off his pedestal.

“I look at Pad and the goals he scores I want to add to my game, the ones in and around the six-yard box.

“It’s more that I’m just trying to learn from him. I can score great goals, outside the box: left foot, right foot, whatever. It’s the tap-ins that I need to get me up to 20 or 30 goals a season.

“The fact he didn’t pass on Tuesday shows how much he wants to score goals and I admire that.

“I just thought ‘fair play to him.’

“I’m here to learn and get better. If I do and I score goals, I’m sure the rest will take care of itself.”

With both Vassell (below) and Madden having been on the scoresheet in midweek, the pair will be going into this afternoon’s game full of confidence.

Presented with an open goal against Doncaster, Madden took a few more touches and ignored his strike partner.

Vassell admitted he had been expecting a pass until he saw the net ripple.

He said: “Pad shouldn’t have scored, I should have had two! I don’t know how he didn’t pass it!

“Up until the last second I thought I was getting the ball passed to me.

“It wasn’t until the ball hit the back of the net that I realised ‘oh, I’m not getting this one!’

“I was delighted. With the run that we’d been on, I was just delighted to go 2-1 up and be leading the game.

“He’s a proven goalscorer, I think injuries over the years have killed me from being a proper, proven goalscorer but we back ourselves to score goals.

“If we play attacking football, we’ll score goals, and that’s what we want and I believe that’s the way the manager wants to play as well.

“Even though results weren’t going for us I feel that we’ve been playing well.

“Saturday will be a good game and I think a lot of our games will be good games because, like I said when I came here, I can’t believe how good the squad is.”

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