General
- Wednesday March 10th, 2010 @ 16:51
SAINTS UP FOR LINFIELD TEST
St Pats travel to Belfast to face Linfield this Saturday in the return leg of the Setanta Cup group match with a place in the semi-finals at stake.
Following a positive 1-1 display in Richmond Park against the Blues and an impressive opening day league win against Galway United, the Saints will be quietly confident of coming away from Windsor Park with a result.
“Going to Windsor Park is a great football occasion”, said St Pat's manager Pete Mahon, “Linfield are a club with a fantastic tradition, the two legs give it a real cup-tie atmosphere and I for one am really looking forward to it”.
“We showed in the first game that we can match them so we'll be going up to try and win”, said Mahon “and if we are to give ourselves any chance of winning, we will need to maintain the performance we gave in the second half at Richmond Park for the whole of the ninety minutes”
David Jeffries men currently have a one point cushion on top of the Carling Premiership, with two games in hand over nearest rival Cliftonville and will be tough opposition for St Pat's.
Since their first meeting with Pat's, Linfield have played twice and were victorious on both occasions. A Curtis Allen double helped the Blues to a 5-0 victory over Portadown in the League and midfielder Jamie Mulgrew secured a 3-1 victory away to Gelntoran with a side footed effort from inside the box.
Strikers Peter Thompson and Curtis Allen are likely to cause the Pat's defence plenty of problems, whilst the Saints will also need to closely watch young full back Aaron Burns who impressed in Richmond Park back in February.
St Patrick's Athletic would ask all supporters intending to travel to the game to register their names to travel before Friday 12.00 with the club.
