Lyttle positive ahead of Finn Harps encounter
ALTHOUGH he must plan for Saturday’s crucial relegation six-pointer against Finn Harps without at least four regular starters, Sligo Rovers manager Ger Lyttle says the side he will field will be good enough to record back-to-back league wins for the first time in almost a year.
Lyttle will be without the suspended quartet of Mick Leahy, Craig Roddan, John Russell and Raffaele Cretaro for this weekend’s game. Although there was good news for the Bit O’Red boss this week with both goalkeeper Micheál Schlingermann and winger Daniel Kearns declared fit.
Rovers sit in the first relegation spot, two points off Harps. A first league win for Sligo over Ollie Horgan’s men in six attempts could see the Showgrounds side potentially move level with seventh placed Limerick. While a tenth defeat of the season could see Rovers placed second from bottom going into the Galway United game on Friday week, should the Tribesmen overcome Derry City on Friday. Rovers have found the going tough against the Ballybofey men since their promotion two years ago having taken just three points from five league meetings.
“It will be tough without the four lads”, Lyttle conceded. “But the players that will come in have been waiting for their chance. We’ll be going there with positivity, to win the game. We know they’re a good team and we know Ollie will have them hard to break down. They had a great result against Limerick last week. It looked as if Limerick were the more dominant team and Harps hit them on the break twice so we’ll be watching for that. It’s a huge challenge but it’s a game that on our day we know we can win.”
Lyttle will be buoyed by the news that first choice goalkeeper Schlingermann is set to return having missed the recent Scottish Cup game against Falkirk, while Kearns too is pushing to be restored to the starting eleven having come off injured against Longford last month.
“Micheál should be fine, he’s trained all last week. Really it was just precautionary with him. He had a couple of wee niggles but he’s over that now. Things look good for Daniel too.”
Seamus Sharkey looks set to keep his place at the heart of the defence for the fifth game running given Leahy’s suspension. Lyttle feels the Isle of Man native has settled well into life at his new club and has formed a good partnership with Kyle Callan-McFadden.
“Seamus and Kyle have been solid the last few games. We’ve been difficult to beat, we’re not leaking goals so for me that’s a big plus. Once you have that, then it’s down to making things tick up front and scoring goals and winning games.”
Another player who will sit out Saturday’s contest is Craig Roddan, who serves a ban having been sent off late in the Cork game. Lyttle says he didn’t see the best of the Liverpudlian during his first few months in the job, but has been delighted with Roddan’s form over the last few games. “It hasn’t been great for (Craig) since I’ve come in in terms of him being out of the team. He was picking up knocks and his performances weren’t great. I didn’t see him in the captain’s role. Maybe it was me jumping the gun. But at the time, he was in and out of the team and at that stage I needed players who could come into the team, ready. We’ve had a few great conversations since about what I want to do and now he’s got his performances back up to where they were when he came here first. We saw how he can drive us on in games against Bray and Cork. Saying that, we need that for 30-odd games not just two and we need it from everyone.”
Saturday’s clash will be Rovers’ first league game in more than four weeks. A mix of fixture rescheduling and a postponed friendly against Athlone which was due to take place at the weekend left Rovers with just one game in 29 days. “This can make it difficult as a manager”, Ger admits. “But in terms of competitiveness, the boys’ training has been top class in terms of tempo and intensity. It’s not the same as a full 90 minute game but the Falkirk game also helped us too.
“It wasn’t ideal to have the Athlone game cancelled. We’ve had to adjust training and the work load but we’ve put in a good shift over the weekend and we’ve set up training in a way that’s as close to the intensity of a 90 minute game as possible.
“You want to bounce straight into another game after a performance like the one in Cork. But I think we’ve managed that and coped well with the training load.
“There’s a few twists left in this. Look at Limerick last week. They’ve been pulled in. Even and Pat’s and Bohs aren’t safe. A couple of wins gets you right out of there and that’s our main focus right now.”