Galway United are fresh off their first Connacht Derby victory since 2017. Confidence is high at the club, and it shows—they’ve come out swinging in the fight for European spots, currently sitting in fourth place just two points off the top.
It’s been a relatively poor start to the season for Derry City, who have picked up just 11 points from their opening nine games, losing at home to Drogheda United last time out. Sticking with the same analogy, the Candystripes have yet to enter the ring in the fight for Europe.
Team News
Moses Dyer will return to the Galway United squad after being unavailable against Sligio Rovers through suspension. It’s doubtful as to weather or not Colm Horgan will be available for selection but thankfully John Caulfield has Conor McCormack and Brendan Clarke back in his matchday sqauds.
Derry City will still be without Patrick Hoban due to injury and there will also be no Liam Boyce or Adam O’Reilly due to suspension.
Key Stats
The clubs meet for the second time this season, the first meeting was a 1-1 draw but probably should have ended with Derry coming away with three points. The Candystripes controlled 62% of the ball, had 24 shots and created 5 big chances.
Discipline has been extremely poor when Derry have been playing this season, in all 9 games their has been at minimum 5 cards shared between both sides. An incredible stat was recently shard on Twitter, stating that Galway haven’t conceded more than two goals in 81 consecutive matches. The statistics for this match suggest this match will have a high amount of bookings with a low amount of goals.
Key Players
Moses Dyer is back from suspension and will be hoping to be back with a bang. The New Zealand native has three goals this season with one of those being against Derry City earlier in the season. Based on the lack of chances Galway had on their trip to the Brandywell, their going to need to be clinical on Friday night and that’s what Dyer has proved to be in his early League of Ireland career.
Admittedly picking the two men that scored in the match in March isn’t very insightful but its incredibly hard to look past Micheal Duffy who has been one of the best players in the league for the best part of a decade and this year is no exemption, the joint top scorer with 5 goals, he’s looked an ever present threat and if anything good is to come from this match for Derry City, Duffy is guaranteed to be involved.
Betting Odds
Derry City are remarkably betting favorites going into the game priced at 8/5 with Galway United at 9/5 and a draw at 15/8.
When and Where to Watch
The game will be played on Friday the 17th of April and will kick off at 7:45pm at Eamonn Deacy Park and is available to watch worldwide on LOITV.