O'Neill content with results since defeat
Credit:
Shamrock Rovers manager Michael O'Neill told Extratime.ie that he was delighted with his side's 6-1 victory at UCD on Friday night, which leaves the Hoops three points clear of Bray Wanderers at the top of the Premier League table.
“We are delighted with the performance and the result. It is always a difficult game coming here. We did the job well. I thought in the first 20 minutes it took us a little time to get going but I think once we scored we relaxed a little bit and played a lot of good football. Obviously UCD going down to ten men helped us but we are delighted with the win and to score six goals as well.”
O'Neill believes that Michael Leahy's 43rd minute sending off for UCD had little bearing on his side's comprehensive victory.“I don't think the sending off changed the game. We were 2-0 up at that point. Billy (Dennehy) was through to probably make it 3-0 at that point in time and he was brought down. It gave us a numerical advantage but we still had to go about our job the way we did.”
O' Neill also believes that it is not the age of his squad that matters but the quality and also emphasised the importance of working with a proper budget. “People keep talking about our squad. Our squad has been brought together on a sensible budget. We have a lot of good players and a lot of good young players in our squad as well that people don't realise. I hear other managers talking about their young squad but I think if you look at ours there's a lot of young players in there tonight. We've got good players and competition for places all over the pitch. That's what we aimed to put together. It took us two years to get the squad we have. We are going to continue to look to strengthen it.”
The Rovers manager revealed that he replaced Ronan Finn and Gary Twigg with Monday night's game against Derry City in mind. However there is one injury concern for the Hoops. “The only injury concern is Chris Turner who got a bang in the first half. We had to take Chris off at half time but the other two were with a view to the game on Monday night. We expect a tough game at home to Derry. We were able to freshen it up a little bit for the last half an hour.”
O'Neill has been happy with the reaction of his players after their recent defeat to Bray Wanderers and he will be hoping his side can take their recent good form into Monday night's massive game in Tallaght. “We were disappointed a few weeks ago when lost to Bray and we reacted well to that. We beat Bohemians, we won in the cup and won here tonight and we'll be ready and we will try to win again on Monday night as well.”
“We are delighted with the performance and the result. It is always a difficult game coming here. We did the job well. I thought in the first 20 minutes it took us a little time to get going but I think once we scored we relaxed a little bit and played a lot of good football. Obviously UCD going down to ten men helped us but we are delighted with the win and to score six goals as well.”
O'Neill believes that Michael Leahy's 43rd minute sending off for UCD had little bearing on his side's comprehensive victory.“I don't think the sending off changed the game. We were 2-0 up at that point. Billy (Dennehy) was through to probably make it 3-0 at that point in time and he was brought down. It gave us a numerical advantage but we still had to go about our job the way we did.”
O' Neill also believes that it is not the age of his squad that matters but the quality and also emphasised the importance of working with a proper budget. “People keep talking about our squad. Our squad has been brought together on a sensible budget. We have a lot of good players and a lot of good young players in our squad as well that people don't realise. I hear other managers talking about their young squad but I think if you look at ours there's a lot of young players in there tonight. We've got good players and competition for places all over the pitch. That's what we aimed to put together. It took us two years to get the squad we have. We are going to continue to look to strengthen it.”
The Rovers manager revealed that he replaced Ronan Finn and Gary Twigg with Monday night's game against Derry City in mind. However there is one injury concern for the Hoops. “The only injury concern is Chris Turner who got a bang in the first half. We had to take Chris off at half time but the other two were with a view to the game on Monday night. We expect a tough game at home to Derry. We were able to freshen it up a little bit for the last half an hour.”
O'Neill has been happy with the reaction of his players after their recent defeat to Bray Wanderers and he will be hoping his side can take their recent good form into Monday night's massive game in Tallaght. “We were disappointed a few weeks ago when lost to Bray and we reacted well to that. We beat Bohemians, we won in the cup and won here tonight and we'll be ready and we will try to win again on Monday night as well.”
