Caulfield still believes Dundalk are the "team to beat"

Cork City manager John Caulfield believes that Dundalk have a stronger squad this season than they did in 2015 and that the current Champions remain the team to beat in the SSE Airtricity League.

Speaking to reporters at the clubs training ground ahead of their clash in Saturday’s Presidents Cup, the City boss insisted that despite losing their talisman in Richie Towell, who signed for Brighton and Hove Albion in January, Stephen Kenny’s men remain the team that should rightly be favourites to take this years’ League title.

“I would say Dundalk are the team to beat, they have won it twice so they have set the barrier.” admitted Caulfield.

“It’s a question of where we are at and it’s a challenge for us to see if we can get up to the level that they were at and can we challenge them.

“I would say they (Dundalk) are even stronger (than last season), was Richie Towell their main player? I would have thought it was Brian Gartland or Stephen O’Donnell, their two anchor men.

“Yes, Richie Towell got the goals but if you want the leaders of the team I thought it would have been Gartland at the back, Stephen O’Donnell in the middle and Daryl Horgan.

“They’ve kept nearly everyone and they brought in Patrick McEleney, they paid big money to bring him in from Derry and arguably people will say he’s the best player in the league on his day.

“So I am not sure that they have weakened at all, the question is have we strengthened and I’m hoping the answer is that we have.”

Last season was ultimately one of disappointment for the Leesiders as they finished runners up to Dundalk in the Premier Division for a second consecutive season.

City have yet to defeat the Lilywhites during Caulfield’s reign as manager, drawing 3 and losing 4 of their encounters including last year’s FAI Cup final.

But the Cork boss believes that the game at Turners Cross will be a great indicator to whether his side has progressed since that defeat.

“You’ll see on Saturday that it’s not a friendly, it will be a very, very competitive game and to have it a week before the season starts is fantastic,” enthused the 51 year old.

“It will be a great indicator of where we are at after seven weeks of pre-season, it will show if we have improved from last season and hopefully we have.

“There was areas last year that we felt we didn’t have enough strength in, we didn’t have enough competition for places and I think that showed.

“We tried in the off season to identify areas that we wanted to change, areas where we want to be more expansive, more dynamic, have more energy and I think the players we brought in shows that.

“Overall we are happy, the attitude of the lads has been good, the new players have done really well, they’ve bought into it straight away and the dynamics of our team looks a lot better and we now look like we will create a lot more chances than we did last season.”

City will be close to full strength for the game at Turners Cross with John Kavanagh their only long term absentee although Mark O’Sullivan, Steven Beattie and Kevin O’Connor remain doubts and will face late fitness tests.