Garts would trade goals for more clean sheets

DUNDALK defender Brian Gartland insists he would happily pass up his impressive goalscoring record for clean sheets and three points.

The 30-year-old scored the vital in Friday night’s victory over Drogheda Utd as he took his tally of goals for the club to 24 in 103 league starts since joining from Portadown in July 2013.

While that must go down as one of the best scoring returns for a defender anywhere across Europe, the centre back insists he’d happily pass it up for shut outs at the other end.

‘Clean sheets and winning games is the most important thing,’ he said.

‘Obviously it’s always nice to score but as a defender I’m still not used to it. I’ve got a good few goals but I’m still not used to it. I’m definitely not a natural scorer,’ he said.

Gartland might not feel he’s a natural scorer but he admits he is proud of his return.

‘I am delighted with it but I’ve been frustrated with myself since the start of the season because I set myself goals and I’ve set standards over the last few years and I need to keep that up,’ he said when asked about the tally.

‘Against Rovers here I had a great chance early on and it was just shy of the back post. Then against Sligo I nearly found the bottom corner but I need to be doing better with them.

‘Since then I haven’t had many chances and it has been in my head. It’s something I worked on yesterday. They were headers I was putting in yesterday that’s why I was disappointed when the chance came today late on to score a header that I didn’t bury it.’

The goal Gartland did score brought back memories of his title clincher at the same end of Oriel Park in October 2014 when he added the second in a 2-0 victory over Cork City that secured a first league win for Dundalk in 19 years.

He admitted to The Argus that the memory of that goal flashed through his head as he fired past Stephen McGuinness on Friday.

‘Even during the move when I took the touch a little flashback of Cork came into my head. I toepoked it that time but it was similar enough, just stopping and finishing it.

‘I was just in the right place at the right time. The ball just came through bodies and I just stopped it. It got stuck under my feet so it was a bit of a peg leg to the other side of the goal. I was disappointed I didn’t get another but the ‘keeper made a great save. That would have been the icing on the cake and given us a good cushion but three points is the big thing.

‘It was a good performance from us. There are a few little things that we need to clean up but going forward I thought we were brilliant. The full backs were outstanding and Tommy Stewart and David McMillan coming in were brilliant up top and caused no ends of trouble.

‘We started really well and went two up and if we had more goals at that point you couldn’t have argued with it. We need to be a bit more clinical.

‘Then giving the goal away on the break was sloppy from our point of view. They’re things we can work on but you’ve got to take the positives out of it and that’s a brilliant three points. In a derby it doesn’t matter where teams are in the table, it’s always a tough game,’ he said.

Now Gartland is hopeful Dundalk can build on the win when they travel to face Finn Harps on Friday night but he is expecting a tough test from the Donegal outfit.

‘They’re a hard team to play against in that they work hard and they will sit back at times and close areas and make it tight. When we played up there last year we won well but the pitch was in great condition. Early on in the season it’s maybe not going to be in such good condition this time. I remember that day I couldn’t believe how good it was so were able to play football. Hopefully the pitch is in that condition again but, if not, we’ve got to adapt because they have started very well.

‘After last week’s loss we’ve put ourselves in a position of pressure where we can’t afford to drop points to the teams below us. We’ve dropped points to Derry and Cork but now we’ve just got to make sure we go away from home and do our jobs and only look at one game at a time. That’s a cliche but we’ve got to close the gap, we can’t let it grow bigger. Next week is massive for us,’ he said.