A match preview written by Matt O’Rourke
The dreaded international break is nearly over, and we return to the League of Ireland. This Friday sees Shelbourne take on Dundalk at home.
Shelbourne sit top of the league, 5 points clear of Derry, and will hope to take another 3 points this Friday against a weak Dundalk who sit dead last.
Dundalk’s season has been very underwhelming, with only 2 points from a possible 15, with dramatic losses such as when Sligo gave them a 5-0 trashing in their own home. They are struggling to pull together anything this season , unlike Shelbourne, who got 16 points from a possible 18, which 3 of those games were big derbies.
Let’s talk key players:
I mean , with the way things are going right now you just have to mention Will Jarvis! Had an amazing performance against Pats in Richmond Park, earning himself a brace and adding to his tally. He can score in difficult scenarios, and I have a feeling he is going to make the Dundalk defenders miserable. And lest we forget, the last time we played Dundalk, Jarvis was the only scorer in that match, scoring early and securing us a 1-0 win in the chase for Europe.
I think our whole back line will also be essential to a victory , Wilson , Gav Molloy, Paddy Barret and Sean Gannon are arguably the best defensive pairing in the league, and we don’t want to give Dundalk any resemblance of a chance, so we need them to perform well this Friday.
I can see Duffer rotating the squad this Friday and bringing in a few people we haven’t seen much of, such as Keith Ward or John Martin. If these players want to prove themselves, they will have to put in a strong performance against Dundalk.
Now for Dundalk, I really struggled to choose some key players, and I’ve ended up choosing one, who is the English centre-back Hayden Muller. I think it will be mostly up to him to stop the vicious Shelbourne attack, as the rest of the team seem very lacklustre. It seems Dundalk don’t have any strong attackers or midfielders that can impact the game.
As for score predictions, I’m going for a 3-0 win for Shelbourne. The Dundalk squad just isn’t good enough to beat a strong, in form Shelbourne. It will hopefully be a good win for us and give us a push to go into next week strong. We have a much more substantial game against second place Derry on Easter Monday.
Now if you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you go read my interview with Shelbourne keeper Conor Kearns, you can read it by clicking below:
Alternatively, you can listen to it on Spotify by clicking here.
Anyways, that’s all folks, thanks for reading.
UTFR