PREVIEW Cork aim to close gap
PREVIEW Cork aim to close gap
Under-21 international striker John O’Flynn will try to help Cork City cut the gap on leaders Shelbourne to just one point by leading his side to victory over Drogheda United at Turners Cross this evening (Friday).
O’Flynn has regained a positive thread of form in the past few days, netting for the Irish under-21 side on Tuesday night, four days after scoring for the first time in five weeks in the league victory over Shamrock Rovers at Turners Cross.
City are unbeaten in eight league games at the Cross this season, and the Leeside fans will expect their side to bag a seventh league win tonight, thus cutting the deficit on Shels to a single point, although it is worth pointing out that the Reds will have two games on hand of City after this weekend’s round of games.
However, the extent of the ambitions of the Cork fans might not be a plus point this evening, and Harry McCue, the Drogheda manager, will know that the longer the game remains scoreless, the greater the chance of nurturing restlessness on the terraces.
Cork have grown accustomed to beating Drogheda here – it is late almost six years since Drogheda avoided a league defeat on Leeside, and they have lost their last four Premier Division visits to the southern capital.
If Cork suffer on their travels, Drogheda are positively shocking when they leave the safe haven of O2 Park.
They have scored just once in three month’s of away games in the Premier Division, and that came in defeat at leaky Waterford United way back in June.
Generally speaking, if you have a defence, you will nullify the attacking threat of this Drogheda side, whereupon you can invest your energies into breaching its defence.
While that, admittedly, is overly simplistic, it is not far from the stark truth of the Drogs this season. A challenge to everyone on their own patch, they are a pale shadow off it - they have lost five of their last six league matches away from home, a dull scoreless draw in Longford breaking the sorry sequence.
That record must be a source of great frustration for McCue to watch his side play with confidence and some measure of potency at home only to leave it all behind them on their travels.
In recent weeks, however, they have begun to suggest that they may be about to turn a corner. Strikers Andy Myler and Declan O’Brien have netted four goals between them in the last four games, a much greater return than was previously the case.
Central to their chances of finding the net, it seems, is the dead-ball delivery and general creativity of midfielder Darren Beasley, who has been a real find for manager McCue this season.
The return to the side last week of youthful centre half Stephen Gray, who settled nicely into a back three alongside Aidan Lynch and Pat Scully after a four-month absence, is also a boost for the Drogs.
They’ll need the defence to be at its best tonight, however. City forward and playmaker George O’Callaghan has raised his performance level a notch in recent weeks, while O’Flynn has shown signs that he has left one of his droughts behind him after those two goals in the past week.
Defender Derek Coughlan is expected to start alongside Dan Murray at centre half in place of the suspended Alan Bennett, who was sent off against Rovers last week. Conor O’Grady returns after a one-match ban, so manager Pat Dolan faces a decision of who to pick in central midfield from O’Grady, Colin T. O’Brien and Greg O’Halloran, who returned to action last week.
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