‘I have no fear now’
Gerard Lyttle is confident his side have enough to avoid the drop
SLIGO Rovers manager Gerard Lyttle is confident that his side has enough to avoid the drop after he was encouraging by their performance against Limerick at the Market’s Field on Saturday evening.
Rovers were well worthy of their point against Neil McDonald’s side on the day, but Lyttle feels that they just aren’t getting the ‘rub of the green’ that could potentially see them pick up vital points as they look to avoid the drop.
With Friday’s results going against them, as both Finn Harps and St. Patrick’s Athletic won, Rovers needed to avoid losing at the very least.
A point wasn’t enough to see them remain out of the danger zone, though, and Lyttle’s charges are in 11th spot at the time of writing.
“THEY had chances, we had chances. They probably slightly edged it with the better chances. But look it’s a difficult place to come and get three points. You saw that at the start of the season when we got absolutely trounced. It’s a big improvement on our behalf. I think our boys stuck to their game plan really well and frustrated Limerick and at times we played some lovely football,” he said afterwards.
“ON another day we could have taken our chances. Overall I’m happy that we’ve come away with at least a point. I think it would have been criminal if we came away with nothing, with the work and effort we put in. I’m really pleased with the boys and really pleased with the effort. I’ve got to mention how classy the chairman of Limerick is - he’s come into our changing room afterwards and spoke to the team and told them how well they did out there and to keep believing. What I’ve seen there, I’ve no fear. We played the right way, if we can work our absolute socks off then the wins are going to come,” he continued.
The Bit O’Red’s defensive shape has improved massively since the former Cliftonville boss took over when Dave Robertson was relieved of his duties.
But Lyttle feels that their luck will change soon and points will start coming.
“I think we have been. You take away the Derry game a couple of weeks ago where we lost a couple of players and we tried to fiddle about with shape and formations and it didn’t work for us, we actually didn’t turn up on the day. Since I’ve come in it’s one thing we’ve hammered into the boys about being solid and working hard and keeping a good shape and being disciplined. We obviously had a bit lacking in the final third, we’re not scoring as many goals as I had hoped. In the game last week against Drogheda, on another day it could have been four or five, the keeper’s been world class and on his day he’ll probably not play a better game all season. I believe our luck will change and I believe we’ll start scoring goals and start winning games.”
Rovers were unfortunate to only get a point against Drogheda United, when it appeared that a perfectly fine goal was disallowed, as the linesman said the ball went out of play before being hit into the back of the net - a decision that left Lyttle left than impressed.
And once again this week he feels let down by the decisions of the officials, following Raff Cretaro’s 89th minute red card for dragging Chiedozie Ogbene down.
“I think it was an absolute shambolic decision from the referee to give a red card. It was a foul, it was a yellow card but no way was it a red card. To be honest I didn’t think we got any decisions today in terms of free-kicks or decisions going our way.
“If it’s a straight red, I’ll be looking at it again. If I don’t think it’s a red card I’ll appeal it. Everybody knows Raff , he’s one of the best pros I’ve ever worked with. He’s made a foul, he’s committed the act but for god’s sake it’s ridiculous.
“The decisions - we can count them up, since I’ve come in they’ve been scandalous. We’ve lost points because of them.
“We’ve had offside goals disallowed that were never offside. We’ve had, last Saturday, that they said was out that was never out. We’ve had fouls on the keeper, we haven’t had the rub of the green. We’ve had poor decisions from the officials over the last couple of months and the margins, if you add them up we could be sitting way higher in the table. That’s the frustrating thing for me as a manager because we’re working our socks off and we’re doing our jobs right.
“Managers get questioned for defeats and dropping points, and you get pulled over for it. I think it’s time that officials need to be accounted for, for some of their decisions and stand up and man up and explain. If you got it wrong, you got it wrong. If you didn’t, fair dues. If I’m wrong I’ll put my hand up and say I’m wrong.
“It’s a hard job they’re doing but they have to get decisions right because there are jobs on the line.”
Lyttle remains confident that a win of games will be enough to see his side get out of trouble, and he now wants to see the intensity and good work from the training ground transferred to the pitch for a match.
The Bit O’Red are still without an away win all season, and with just ten league games left, time is ticking away very quickly.
“You’ve Drogheda, St. Pats, Galway, us, Finn Harps, Bohemians and maybe Limerick, Bray could be in there. You just don’t know. If you can get a run of games where you can get wins on board. Every team is capable of beating each other.
“We’ve seen a lot of progression (since Lyttle’s arrival). We’ve seen games where we’ve gone behind and in previous the boys would have crumbled and lost the game.
“The big thing now we need to work on is winning games away from home. We haven’t won a game away from home all year. We have to challenge ourselves to win games away from home. I’m seeing signs of improvement every week in training from the boys, their intensity.
“We need to continue to do that and if we continue to do that then that will transfer on to the pitch and I can see the transformation already.”