Captain says Dundalk will have to work for away goal

FH captain David Thór Vidarsson gave a possible insight into his side’s mentality ahead of their Champions League second qualifying round second leg tie against Dundalk at the Kaplakriki on Wednesday by backing the Icelandic champions not to concede at home.

Steven Lennon’s 77th-minute equaliser in Oriel Park last week means that a 0-0 draw would be enough to send Hafnarfjordur through.

And the midfielder told The Argus that he is confident that’s a result his side can achieve on home soil.

Asked whether he was confident of scoring at home, the 32-year-old said: ‘Hopefully we don’t need to score at home and we can keep a clean sheet.

‘We have been defending really well and we defended really well in this game. Dundalk didn’t create that many chances even though they had more possession than we had. In the domestic league we’ve kept a lot of clean sheets and only conceded six goals in 10 games, so I’m quite confident that we won’t need that goal, but we’ll hopefully play a bit better football on Wednesday and hopefully we’ll go through.’

That said, the eight-times capped Icelandic international was full of compliments about Dundalk’s ability and is well aware of how dangerous they can be.

‘In my opinion they have a really good side,’ he said.

‘They’re really physical but still play good football, which is not always the case when you have physical teams. They try to play with a lot of tempo and it looks like they’re in really good shape and can press for 90 minutes.

‘That didn’t really surprise me because we had watched a few of their games and clips from a lot of others, so I knew they were good. I saw them play against Cork City, but I think Dundalk are by far, in my opinion, a better side than them and we have a really, really tough task ahead us next Wednesday.

‘We met a really good side here tonight who put us under pressure right from the off, especially in the first 15 or 20 minutes. We didn’t keep the ball as well as we can, but being 1-0 behind and then getting that equaliser and the away goal, we’re really happy about that and we’ll look forward to the return leg at our home pitch.’

Vidarsson was also full of praise for his side’s goalscorer Lennon, who despite a quite night popped up with the crucial equaliser 13 minutes from time.

‘That’s what a good striker does and he’s definitely a really good striker,’ said the midfielder.

‘The way he finished that, it was a clinical finish and I think I might buy him lunch at the airport tomorrow,’ he laughed.

Unlike Lennon, though, Vidarsson refused to blame the Oriel Park pitch for his side being marginally second best on the night.

‘Nah, not really,’ he said when asked if the artificial surface was a factor.

‘It took a while to get used to the bounce of it, but other than that I thought it was okay. We’re used to training on artificial grass almost the whole year around, so that is nothing new for us, but I think the reason why we didn’t keep the ball as well as we wanted is more that we were a bit nervous, especially in the beginning, and we didn’t want to take any chances, and when you don’t want to take any chances you sometimes don’t realise that you have more time on the ball than you think.

‘We got a little bit better in the second half and hopefully we’ll get a little bit better again in the second leg.’