Cassidy relishing European adventure

Drogheda United midfielder David Cassidy is relishing his first trip into Europe having spent so many years watching other players experience the buzz of European competition.

Cassidy joined Drogheda this season from Shelbourne, part of his motivation was the lure of the Europa League.

“Definitely, Europe had an influence why I signed, but also they finished second in the league, second best club in the league last year so why wouldn’t ya,” he said.

For the Drogheda fans, the buzz of European football has been a tangible factor of this season since Philip Hand scored the winner against Sligo Rovers towards the end of last year, but for Cassidy, it’s only setting in now.

“Yeah, everyone is looking forward to it, obviously we have only started thinking about it in the last couple of days because we have had a few games in-between, but as Mick said, everyone is fit and everyone is fighting for a position.

“Obviously there is a lot of talk about it throughout the year but you don’t really get the feel for it until the likes of tonight when we are here. As I’ve said we have had a lot of games recently and we can’t really think about anything but the next league game,” he added.

 Drogheda’s recent league run doesn’t inspire much confidence, but the Boynesiders handed everyone in the club a timely boost when they beat Cork City on Monday night.

“The results have been disappointing, I don’t think we’ve played too bad to be honest, as we said, before the break we lost a few games by the odd goal, some of the results didn’t merit the way we played, so it’s something we can try and build on in terms of results. The performances have been good, but we have to try and cut out little errors and there’s no better way of starting than tomorrow night.”

The term ‘passing side’ has been bandied about when talking about Malmo, Drogheda keeper Gabriel Sava, once a trialist in Sweden also talked about how the Nordic sides play a passing game and Caissdy merely states that Sligo are a passing side and over two legs Drogheda beat them.

“We have to look at Sligo, they are a passing team, we played them earlier in the year over two legs and we beat them, if they don’t have the ball they can’t pass it, so we’ve got to try and have it and keep the ball.”

“If we can try and keep a clean sheet then we know we are going to be in the game going over to Sweden. It’s not going to be the worst case if we do concede because we can score but a clean sheet will be a big help going away,” he concluded.