General
- Wednesday September 4th, 2024 @ 15:15
Preview: Dundalk V Saints (05/09/24)
St Patrick's Athletic will be looking to continue their positive form as they make the trip to Co Louth to face Dundalk FC tomorrow night.
The Saints come into this game off the back of a strong performance and victory against Drogheda United, in what was a Super Sunday in Inchicore.
Stephen Kenny's men ran out 4-1 winners as they returned from European duty with a bang in front of their home fans.
Chris Forrester opened the scoring in the first-half with a penalty as Luke Heeney's handball on the line let to a straight red card for the former Saints Academy man, before Drogs scored a pen of their own through Douglas James-Taylor to make it 1-1.
Pat's responded almost immediately via Jake Mulraney goal on the brink of the break after an excellent bit of play from Zack Elbouzedi.
Just minutes into the second-half, the Elbouzedi and Mulraney combination came to the fore again, with the latter netting his second of the game with a bullet header from yet another Elbouzedi assist.
16-year-old Mason Melia scored late on with a powered drive from outside the box, leaving the goalkeeper with no chance, to clinch an impressive 4-1 victory.
OPPOSITION WATCH
Thursday's fixture will be our 167th league meeting with Dundalk FC.
Of the 166 games so far, St Pat's have won 57, there have been 48 draws and Dundalk have been victorious 61 times.
The match will see Stephen Kenny come up against his former club with Kenny set to manage at Oriel Park for the first time since departing for the Republic of Ireland U21s at the end of the 2018 season, while ex St Pat's Manager Jon Daly will will face his former side for the second time since his departure from Richmond Park in May.
Dundalk's last outing was a 1-0 defeat to Shelbourne at Oriel Park last Friday.
They sit bottom of the table with 24 points from their 28 games, however a win against St Pat's would move them above Drogheda United into 9th spot, Dundalk are currently one point behind Drogs with a game in hand (tomorrow).
Ex Saints John Mountney and Robbie Benson, who were part of our 2021 FAI Cup winning squad, could also face their former club tomorrow night, in the final league meeting of the season for the sides.
The last encounter between these two was a 3-2 victory for Dundalk at Richmond Park on June 3rd. A Jamie Gullan double and a Ryan O'Kane goal secured the three points for Daly's side, while Forrester and Jamie Lennon scored for Pat's.
The previous clash at Oriel Park was a scoreless draw in April while Pat's won the opening meeting of the season 1-0 thanks to a Ruairi Keating strike at Richmond.
KENNY: "We're ready for the game"
Manager Stephen Kenny spoke to our website after training on Wednesday afternoon to look ahead to the action:
"We've challenged the players to try to replicate the intensity and the quality of our performances in Europe and translate that to our league form between now and the end of the season.
You are never sure coming back off a European game, especially with the tight turnaround, but the lads were excellent against Drogheda United and will need to raise their levels again tomorrow night.
Every team in the league is fighting for something, all the games are difficult and facing Dundalk will be no different.
The players have recovered well over the last couple of days since Sunday and trained well this afternoon, we're ready for the game."
ANANG: "We need to keep up our levels and our standards."
Goalkeeper Joseph Anang has been in fine form since returning to the club on a permanent deal from West Ham United during the summer window, he's hoping his side can continue their good run of form:
"The Manager explained to us before the Drogheda United game that there were 27 points to play for across the last series and we picked up three and now our focus is on the game in Dundalk on Thursday, which is massive for us.
We played really well against Drogheda and scored four goals, we look dangerous when we are attacking and our defenders have been playing well too, so we have confidence going into the match on Thursday and know we need to keep up our levels and our standards.
We want to build on our good performances over the last couple of months but we know Oriel Park is a really difficult place to go against a good team who beat us last time we played at Richmond Park, they'll be aiming for the three points as much as us so we'll have to be at our best.
I feel over the last few months that we've built a really good relationship and bond between all of the players and staff, and that counts for a lot on and off the pitch.
We've spent so much time as a group, training, preparing, in meetings, playing, traveling and chilling out together playing games etc at the hotels which has been great.
We all want to work hard for each other and fight for points together between now and the end of the season.
We've formed good working relationships on the pitch too, in terms of the different habits of different players etc in various scenarios and that's helped with our positive performances recently so hopefully we can keep going on Thursday night."
TEAM NEWS
Romal Palmer (knee) and Cian Kavanagh (back) will miss the game.
TICKETS / TV / UPDATES
Away tickets are only available online HERE, tickets purchased for the original fixture which was postponed as valid, another who is looking for a refund from the postponed game should email office@dundalkfc.com
The game will be live on LOITV.
As always, updates and live match chat can be found on the Official St Pat's FC App - available now on both the App Store and Play Store.
Updates will also be available across all the club's social media channels and WhatsApp.
