St. Patrick's Athletic -v- Shamrock Rovers

• Eoin Manning
• Mon, May 04 2009


St. Patrick’s Athletic host Shamrock Rovers at Richmond Park on Monday afternoon in the EA Sport’s League Cup hoping the competition can provide them with a welcome distraction from what has been a treacherous start to their league campaign (Kick Off: 3:00pm).

The Inchicore club have lost six of their opening ten games of the season leaving their supporters very disgruntled, some even calling for manager Jeff Kenna’s already and will be desperate to ensure they don’t go down to their capital city rivals for the second time in a fortnight. .

Rovers, on the other hand, have been progressing very smoothly in spite of Friday night’s surprise defeat to Bray Wanderers and indeed beat Pat’s 2-0 just nine days ago when the two sides met at The Hoop’s fantastic new Tallaght Stadium. .

The gods haven’t exactly been smiling on Saint’s boss Jeff Kenna during his first season at the club as injury after injury not to mention needless suspensions have conspired to force him to change his team on a weekly basis totally disrupting any sort of continuity or even allow him field anything like his strongest XI. .

Kenna however, remains confident and will not allow his faith in his squad be diminished: “I’m happy with the level of performance, the commitment, the desire, the togetherness.” Adding: “We are a good squad and we’ll turn the corner.” .

When questioned as to whether he would be fielding a weakened side in the competition Kenna indicated he may not make too many changes: “Possibly, injuries, suspensions, whatever may crop up. At the moment it’s a case of getting a consistency into the team, a little bit of continuity which unfortunately we haven’t been able to do.” .

Rover’s manager Michael O’Neill suggested he could do likewise, again depending on availability: “We’ll look at the squad. We don’t have a big squad, and we’ve a couple of players injured. We’ll have a look at what we have available, and we’ll see how people are and we’ll put out a team on Monday that we believe can win the match.” .

O‘Neill also stressed that he would be taking the competition seriously and was already planning for it once the final whistle blew against Bray: “After you get a result like that and a performance like that, sometimes you want a game as quickly as possible.We’ll regroup: players, coaches, managers, everyone – and we’ll look forward to Monday’s game in the EA Sports Cup, and make sure we’re ready for Sligo Rovers next week. .

Pat’s defender Jamie Harris was red carded after the final whistle following Friday’s defeat by Galway United at Terryland Park so he will miss the game and things are still very bleak on the injury front for Kenna as Gary Dempsey, Mark Leech, Gints Friemanis, Noel Haverty, Bobby Ryan and Stephen Maher are all injured while Glen Fitzpatrick remains no closer to a comeback. .

O’Neill on the other hand has only Ian Bermingham as a definite casualty although there are also doubts over Dessie Baker (hamstring), Robert Duggan (dizziness) and Sean Webb has a bad back. .

Both set of fans will be hoping to end their bank holiday weekend on a high and while the league cup isn’t always the highest on manager’s list of priorities bragging rights from a Dublin derby are very high on the list of supporter’s priorities.