Matt Goss of Orica-GreenEDGE will change his race programme in 2014. This comes after he has won only twice since signing for the team, although the wins were a Giro stage and a Tirreno-Adriatico stage. However in the first 6 months of 2011, he won 10 races including Milan-Sanremo. He is now going to return to the program that brought him so much success in 2011.

“2013 wasn’t what I wanted and that’s for sure. There’s no beating around the bush with that, I guess,” he recently told Cyclingnews.

“2014 I’m going to try and go back to how I did things in 2011 and 2010 even. The way I’ve trained before and in what I have confidence in. It’s going back to basics a little bit.”

“It’s the same with the race program a little bit. I’ve done Tirreno in the last two years but next year I’m going to go back to doing Paris-Nice and just trying to go back to how did things in 2010 and 2011 when I was more consistent.”

When Orica first signed him, he was expected to bring the team wins along with Simon Gerrans, the teams other marquee signing. Nut the emergence of Sagan and Kittle along with an inability to bet Cavendish and Greipel has seen Goss fail to win regularly. 

Team manager Matt White has already stated that Goss will target similar races to Sagan and that Goss’ form and that of other sprinters will dictate whether he starts the Giro or the Tour of California.

“I tried to do everything better and better and I just seemed to complicate things more and more. 2012 was probably not as noticeable as I changed a few things and it was an okay year but not a great year. Then I tried to things even more and I didn’t achieve what I wanted.”

“When you don’t win it starts to build up and build up and you put more and more pressure on yourself. You’ve just got to deal with that move on. If I can go back to having confidence in doing things that I know used to work then that will help relieve the pressure.”

Goss will race less in the first half of 2014 in an attempt to preserve himself for whatever Grand Tour he enters as at the Tour this year, he lacked the sharpness to take on Kittlel, Cav and co.

“If you look at the guys coming to the Tour now like Kittel and Greipel, they’re quite fresh. They’ve done a bit of racing but last year I did Romandie, Giro, Suisse and the Tour. I didn’t have that zip or acceleration. I was plenty strong enough but I was flat. I want to do that. That’s what I did before hand. I used to have periods of around four to six weeks where I could train but this year I’ve just tried to race more and more and that’s had a downward effect.”

Should Goss regain his 2011 form, he will be a fore to be reckoned with in 2014.