Stephen Bradley has confirmed that Adam Brennan and Ed McGinty will miss Shamrock Rovers’ upcoming Dublin derbies after linking up with the Republic of Ireland squad.
The 2-1 loss at Tallaght Stadium was the Hoops’ first home defeat of the season and now means they have suffered back-to-back league defeats, allowing both St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians to close the gap in the title race.
Bradley was blunt in his assessment of the performance, especially when comparing it to last week’s narrow defeat:
“Last week we were good and we liked a lot of what we done whereas this week I don’t think we deserved to win the game, didn’t do enough (but) didn’t deserve to lose it either but definitely didn’t do enough to win it.”
The Hoops looked unusually flat from the opening stages and Stephen Bradley admitted he was unhappy with what he saw early on. That frustration was highlighted by the first-half withdrawal of Jake Mulraney, which the Rovers boss confirmed was purely tactical rather than injury-related:
“I felt there was probably 2 or 3 (we could’ve taken off). It was poor. The start was slow and sloppy and we gave them momentum straight away.”
The atmosphere at Tallaght Stadium has at times been a stick to beat Shamrock Rovers with but Stephen Bradley was quick to dismiss any complaints about the flatness in the ground:
”That’s down to us (to bring the energy). Our fans are incredible. That’s one thing you can’t complain about here. We’ve gone to different atmospheres, different arenas so we’re well experienced to know that you create your own atmosphere.”
There isn’t much time for a post mortem to the performance for Bradley and his staff with a big Dublin Derby to come on Monday but he insists that they mustn’t brush the performance under the carpet:
“We need to look at it (the performance) and look at the week leading up to it. There’s obviously reasons for it because it hasn’t happened very often. I need to look at me, the tactics and how we set up to play. It’s quite clear to see it wasn’t us so something has obviously gone wrong and we need to identify it and rectify it, we’ll have to look it tomorrow, if you allow things to go unchecked then you’re in trouble.
It doesn’t happen often, especially here that we’re so below our levels but it was definitely the case tonight.”Despite a quick turnaround before huge Dublin derbies against Bohs and Pats, Bradley insisted the performance cannot simply be forgotten about because of the packed schedule.
Stephen Bradley also confirmed that both Adam Brennan and Ed McGinty joined up with the Republic of Ireland national football team squad on Saturday, ruling them out of this week’s crucial Dublin derbies
The Rovers manager also reiterated his long-held belief that League of Ireland players deserve international recognition and showed no frustration over Dawson Devoy remaining available for Bohemians before linking up with the national team.
“I’ve been talking for a long time that players in our league deserve to be called up.”
With McGinty unavailable, youngster Alex Noonan is expected to step in between the posts, though Stephen Bradley made it clear he has full confidence in his backup goalkeeper.
“Alex is fine. He’d play for most of the teams in the league. There’s no issues regarding Alex, he’s ready.”