Keegan admits Dundalk need to mind the gap

SHANE Keegan admits he is scratching his head to put his finger on the reason for Dundalk’s poor start to the season but says everyone is putting the shoulder to the wheel to find a solution.

One point from four games to date is the club’s joint worst start to a top flight campaign and with table-topping St Patrick’s Athletic the next visitors to Oriel Park on Saturday night (kick-off 6pm, live on WATCHLOI) the Lilywhites have a potentially daunting fixture up next to try and turn things around.

When it was put to him that just one point from four was not what either the fans or owners would have expected, Keegan said: ‘No, absolutely not, that’s for sure.

‘Look we knew it was a very, very tough start to the season but you don’t expect to have one point after four games from the start either at the same time and it doesn’t exactly get any easier next weekend either.

‘I know I’m repeating myself but I’m repeating myself to a certain extent because our performances are repeating themselves in that there isn’t a magic wand. As you can see by the fact that I don’t know how long it is after the final whistle that I’ve managed to appear out to you here because obviously there is a lot of talk in the dressing room when things are going the way they are at the moment and everybody is trying to come up with solutions.

‘When I say everybody, players are trying to come up with solutions, staff are trying to come up with solutions and at the moment that’s what we have to keep trying to do. We need to fix it. Again, I said that last week and I know I’m repeating myself but we need to fix it and collectively we need to put our finger on the pulse as to what exactly is going wrong here and just get it right next Saturday night,’ said the Laois man.

The team manager admitted that the performance against Bohemians wasn’t good enough on the night despite him believing his side should have had a penalty late in the game.

‘It wasn’t very good, that’s probably the bluntest take on it,’ he said.

‘Look, I don’t know. We huffed and we puffed and we huffed and we puffed again and we didn’t really get anywhere.

‘I mean, probably our only real clear-cut chance was Sam with the header that he had saved on the six-yard box and even that was a scrappy one. That’s a proper buildup. So you work all week what you try to do with the ball, you work all week on a style of play that you think will bring the best out, but unfortunately it’s just not showing on match night at the moment which is obviously the big problem that we have to solve.’

Keegan also admitted that the treble change midway through the second half impacted his side but said introducing Patrick McEleney for Han Jeong Woo at half-time was an ‘obvious one.’

He said: ‘It was probably highly likely that somebody was going to get hooked at half-time almost no matter how the game was going because if we’ve got 45 minutes of Fats to use, you’re going to use it one way or another.

‘After that, the idea was to bring on three to cause a big shift in momentum, you’re trying to completely change the game by making them in the one go. The last one is a typical change, an attacker for a defender with ten minutes left. Did we get any massive impact from any of them? No. So you’re right in that sense, you’d be looking for a lot more from your changes and looking to influence the game a lot more. We didn’t really influence the game with the changes unfortunately.’

Keegan denied that things looked ‘chaotic’ from the outside looking in and said he still had faith that the players were there to turn things around for Dundalk.

‘There’s absolutely 100pc enough talent in that dressing room to go on a massive run of winning games, no doubt about it.

‘There’s enough talent in that dressing room for them to go and pick up 85 or 90pc of the points available from here until the end of the season. Will that be enough? The problem is are we leaving it too late to get our act together? Absolutely, we’re capable of going on a savage run.

‘There is a huge amount of time there but it has to come ASAP. It absolutely has to come ASAP because you look at a Rovers and that and you just can’t let them get too far ahead. As I said, what was achieved two years ago wasn’t achieved last year and probably won’t be achieved again this year. We can’t let that gap develop,’ he said.