Drogs’ derby demolition is irrelevant
TIM Clancy has dismissed Drogheda United’s heavy derby defeat in Oriel Park as irrelevant in terms of their upcoming league campaign.
The Boynesiders shipped five goals inside the first 31 minutes in last Friday’s Jim Malone Cup game against Dundalk before steadying the ship, eventually going down 5-1, but Clancy preferred to hail the league champions’ performance than pick out any weaknesses in his own team’s display.
‘You can’t take anything out of that game or judge ourselves because Dundalk are the best team in the country for the last half-decade,’ he began, speaking on Monday afternoon.
‘Everyone was interested to see how they would be after Stephen Kenny leaving - and that’s the best I’ve seen them in the four years I’ve been back in Ireland.
‘I didn’t think we started too badly even though we were a couple of goals down after nine minutes. They’re full-time and it’s a different level of fitness and they’re ruthless when it comes to turnover of the ball.
‘A result like that is not what you want in these games, but nobody can judge us on the how we do against Dundalk and they will beat teams in the Premier Division by that score.’
Luke Gallagher’s goal and a clean sheet at the other end ensured Drogheda won the second half at Oriel Park and Clancy felt that was down to a combination of factors - substitutions, a change of formation to 3-5-2 and Dundalk ‘taking their foot off the gas’.
‘We went three at the back and that made us more solid, but the main thing was a lot of lads got 90 minutes, there were no injuries and I was quite happy with the way we played in possession,’ he continued.
‘In terms of fitness levels we’ll keep plugging away and prepare for the next game against Finn Harps. We’ve four left before the start of the season starts to work on things with regards to how we want to play - there’s a couple of formations we can use.
‘But mostly it’s about getting minutes into lads and not picking up injuries.’
Drogheda are likely to operate with the same panel of 18 players for Saturday’s visit of promoted club Finn Harps, which has a 1pm kick-off.
Clancy said his squad was now complete for the league campaign, which begins with the visit of Cobh Ramblers on Friday February 22nd, and he scotched any hope of two of last season’s star players coming back to United Park on loan.
William Hondermarck, who had been offered deals by both Norwich City and Dundee United, signed for the Canaries early last week for a fee believed to be around the €25,000 mark and went straight into their Under-18 team for an FA Youth Cup tie away to Preston on Tuesday.
There had been talk of Drogheda bringing back highly rated centre-half Ciaran Kelly on loan from St Patrick’s Athletic, but Clancy said that rumour was wide of the mark.