Goalscoring midfielder back to his best
generally covers the most distance for us when he plays in the 10, so when we like to play with a high press, Sean is crucial to that.
“He gets a lot of important goals, I just think the other thing that I’ve noticed since I’ve come back is he’s really grown into the group.
“He loves it here with the lads and they love him as well.
“He’s become an integral part of a new culture developing in the club.”
Despite picking up three points last Friday, Dundalk remain second from bottom in the Premier Division, behind Waterford.
However, they can climb out of the relegation play-off zone with a win in their game-in-hand tonight against Bohemians.
Perth is confident they can avoid a play-off, play-off but says they will be ready for it if that’s what it takes to secure their top-flight survival.
“It’s about us winning our fair share of games, which I think we’ll do. We can’t control what other teams do or don’t do,” he said.
“Look, we’re capable of winning four or five of our last nine.
Worst
“What’s the worst case scenario, a relegation play-off? It is what it is and we’ll deal with it. “Butifwekeepplayingtheway we’re playing, we’ll be okay.”
He added: “Players aren’t stupid, if teams were creating chances against us and outplaying us, they wouldn’t listen to me. But we know why this is happening.
“We were outstanding in the summer on the European run, but when you lose eight or nine of your teammates all of a sudden, results are going to follow.
“When we came out of Europe, we went up to Derry three days later and Michael Duffy didn’t play for five weeks and Patrick McEleney hasn’t played since.
“Daniel Kelly didn’t play for three weeks, came back and then went out with a bad ankle, and David McMillan hasn’t played since.
“Any other League of Ireland club would struggle if they lost players of that quality on top of, you know, other stuff [Covid] that is well documented.
“It’s just been a difficult time but we’ve played well ... we’ve got confidence in the group.”