Performance is Clancy’s n
MANAGER Tim Clancy insists it’s all about the performance when Drogheda United complete their run of pre-season friendlies with a trip to Solitude to face Cliftonville on Saturday (kick-off 3pm).
The game comes seven days before the Boynesiders are due to begin their SSE Airtricity League First Division campaign with an away trip to Cobh Ramblers and will complete what Clancy believes has been a fruitful run of fixtures against top-flight opposition.
Each of the five matches to date have ended in defeat, but Drogheda were competitive in all of them - against Dundalk, Bohemians, Derry City, St Patrick’s Athletic and Sligo Rovers.
The manager rejected the suggestion that a win in north Belfast this weekend would give the squad a boost ahead of the long trip to St Colman’s Park on the 15th.
‘We want to win every game we play, but the result this weekend makes no difference,’ he said, speaking on Monday afternoon.
‘We didn’t win a game in pre-season last year, but we ended up scoring the most goals in the league and finishing second, so I’m more concerned about the performance than the result.
‘It’s been a tough run of games, but you can play Leinster Senior League teams and score five or six goals and get ideas above your station.’
Clancy was happy once again with his team’s performance last Friday in Richmond Park, where St Patrick’s Athletic were 1-0 winners thanks to a second-half Darragh Markey strike, and he discounted the theory he’ll be looking for a bit more potency this week as the countdown to the league campaign begins.
‘I don’t think we’ll be looking for more intensity. Against St Pat’s again we were playing a full-time team and I thought we looked extremely fit considering we are a week behind the Premier Division clubs who are starting their season this week.
‘It’s always the situation that when you’re playing someone in a higher league you’ll end up working on things more defensively, but we’ve kept all our attacking players from last season and they haven’t got any worse. In fact they will get better from being a year older and playing longer together.’
In terms of injuries, the chief concern remains the situation with Drogheda’s goalkeepers and although a scan has revealed no fracture to Luca Gratzer’s foot, it’s thought to be an injury related to over-use and he’s been told to rest it for a couple of weeks.
That would seem to rule him out for the Cobh Ramblers fixture and Clancy was hoping that Ross Treacy has recovered sufficiently from a knock he suffered in the Dundalk match to play the friendly against Cliftonville, who are moving into the final stages of a five-way title race.
Treacy has played just 71 minutes in pre-season and needs game time to force his way into the reckoning, with 18-year-old David Odumosu currently in pole position to start Drogheda’s first league match.
Sean Brennan, who wasn’t risked last Friday after tweaking his hamstring earlier in the week,
We’ve kept our attacking players from last season and they haven’t got any worse. In fact they will get better from being a year older and playing longer together.