Russell rues missed chances

UCD fell to their third straight defeat on Friday night in Oriel Park and manager Martin Russell had no real complaints about his sides defeat. Speaking to extratime.ie, Russell felt that his side should have been in front at the break and rued their missed chances.

“I think the disappointing thing is that we weren’t in the lead. In the first half we had the better of the play bar a two minute spell and we failed to score when we had the chances. To go behind gives us a tasking chance but then to go two behind gives us a big mountain to climb. We tried to come back and we nearly snatched a point. “

Despite having a lot of the ball and the better of the play, Russell didn’t feel the visitors deserved a point.

“If you go by the balance of play and quality of play maybe but if you don’t score and concede the goals we conceded then I don’t think we deserved anything. If we can learn from things that happened tonight and be a little more clinical then maybe the next time we play Dundalk we can come out on the right side”

The result in Oriel Park meant that was UCD’s third defeat on the bounce. It was another defeat that they were unfortunate to come away with nothing. However the UCD boss believes his side needs to work harder and nothing will happen by chance.

“We have to work towards it. We were decent in patches tonight but nothing will happen by chance. We have got to keep going, keep pushing, keep believing, keep encouraging each other and if that happens, the performances will be good enough and we will get points. We will look towards the next game now and try to take another step forward again.”

Russell was disappointed that the visitors didn’t create any real clear cut chances in the final 20 minutes when they pulled one back but praised the Dundalk defence.

“I am disappointed that we didn’t manage anything clear. You look at their ‘keeper and he didn’t really have to make a save. Just a few catches. To be fair, they defended resolutely. We needed that little bit of extra quality that we didn’t have that could have got us a point. We even had a great chance in the final few minutes where Cherrie missed the ball but we had no one there.”

One positive for Russell was the return of Paul Corry to the side. “I felt he contributed greatly to our play. He was composed and had a bit of quality about him in the midfield. He was getting tired, he’s only back in full training really so I had to replace him but he definitely gave us an extra lift in the centre. It’s great to get him back.”