Monaghan United vs Shelbourne

• Simon Carter
• Tue, Jul 29 2008




Seventh place Monaghan United take on Shelbourne in a game that the Drumcondra side will feel they must win. With victory for Sporting Fingal and Dundalk on Monday night, Shelbourne have now moved into 4th place, 5 points behind the Lilywhites.

Monaghan United were defeated by leaders Dundalk last Thursday however they will be confident going into this game as in the Dublin’s side last visit to Kingspan Century Park, United had one of their few victories of this season’s campaign. The Mons will need a vastly improved performance however.

Manager Mick Cooke believes his side can get the better of the visitors as he believes his side are better now despite the recent poor results.

“No doubt it will be a tough game, however the fact that we beat them on their last visit here shows that it can be done. Bar the last couple of results I believe we have a much better side now.”

“The result against Dundalk was very disappointing as I felt we should have got a result there, but we have to put it into context, they are the Division leaders, playing at home this season not many teams have taken points off of them. The early goal was a major blow, but we had the whole game to recover from and I felt we doing quite well until we conceded the second goal. We just have to put this result behind us and bounce back for Tuesday’s game. The teams spirits were low after the week-end but we are taking the positives from it and I believe it will be the spur that we will require against Shels.“

Over the week-end Cooke has made a number of changes to the squad. Robbie Collins, Ian Maher and Wayne Byrne have all left the club and Sean Brennan comes in. Brennan comes from the Drogheda Town for whom he starred recently in FAI Cup. Kevin Williamson is out through suspension.

Dermot Keely will probably be hoping this game somehow gets called off as his injuries mount. Anto Flood suffered an injury in a friendly against Leeds United last week and will not feature. Alan Keely and Franco Georgescu are also casualties having picked up knocks. Dave McAllister, although not fit to play, will be on the bench along with a number of call-ups from the underage teams as the Shelbourne squad is stretched to its limits.

The game kicks off at 20:00.