O’Donnell cannot continue blaming others for current plight

Supporters expect Lilywhites to be much higher up the table

AT THIS stage, disillusioned Dundalk supporters will search long and hard to find any green shoots to indicate that there is even the faintest hope that their team can recover from the nightmare start to the season.

Some found a few of those shoots in a gutsy performance against neighbours Drogheda United at Oriel Park on Monday, especially in the second half, when, at last, they roused the respectable attendance of 2,458 to get behind the players after a very subdued first half.

That they didn’t succeed in inspiring them to collect all three points was disappointing and, clearly, deeply frustrating for the players and the crowd, but the reality is that the team is unable to turn possession into goals because they lack an attacking edge or a spark of ingenuity in midfield.

This is evident from their return of no goals in their four home matches, with only two in total, and the overriding impression from supporters coming away from Oriel on Monday was that they can’t see where the goals will come from.

They dominated possession in the second half, managed to create a number of promising situations and had ample freekicks in good areas, plus a succession of corners, and a man advantage for 20 minutes, yet they managed to bring just the one save of any consequence out of the Drogheda ’keeper Andrew Wogan.

Failure to take all three points has anchored the team firmly to the bottom of the SSE Airtricity Premier Division and within the coming weeks, owner Brian Ainscough and his head coach, Stephen O’Donnell, have big decisions to make and if they don’t get them right then the prospect of relegation will haunt the season.

Ainscough has to determine if O’Donnell is the right man for the job and factoring into that decision is the obvious cost of getting rid of O’Donnell and his considerable backroom staff, while he can’t ignore the reality that there is no guarantee that a new coach will dramatically change the situation.

BLAME

O’Donnell must stop blaming others and while, understandably, he defended his position after the Shelbourne defeat, he can’t ignore the obvious that the current squad is composed of players he recruited and if, as he continually says, he has confidence that the squad can deliver then he must do more to find the right combination to get the best out of his players.

Both, the owner and head coach, can’t ignore the evidence of Monday’s derby, for it is impossible to disguise the obvious that it was a contest between two poor teams who will likely scrap it out between them for the bottom place.

O’Donnell keeps harping on the fact that the club’s supporters have to be realistic given the upheaval in ownership that has fed into the retention and recruitment of players, but this is Dundalk, the second most successful club in the League of Ireland, where supporters, fed on seasons of glory, expect, even demand, that their team is competing for honours, not propping up the division.

They see from their head coach a man inflicted by indecision as he chops and changes his starting XI in search of a winning formation, but the result is that his dithering has damaged the players’ confidence, with two in particular, Daryl Horgan and Ryan O’Kane, on whom the team is heavily reliant, not just for goals but a spark of cleverness, are both suffering badly from a lack of confidence.

The situation is not hopeless for goals appear to be at a premium in many games, which is an indication that it is turning out to be a very competitive league with newcomers Galway United and Waterford not content to be also rans.

A goal at home, a win, even courtesy of a scrappy own goal, a penalty, would do wonders for Dundalk’s belief, for one of the green shoots of hope on Monday was the immaculate performance of 18-year-old Zak Johnson at the heart of the defence and the contribution of veteran John Mountney, making a belated return to the team.

But it doesn’t get any easier with a trip to Derry City on Friday and although the home team, even with the presence of an array of attacking talent that once graced Oriel, are also short of goals, it is hard to see O’Donnell’s men getting the win that they need.

FRIDAY’S GAME

For Friday night’s game away to league leaders Shelbourne, O’Donnell made three changes from the side that drew with Waterford, two enforced through injuries and the other a more significant one with Zak Bradshaw being replaced in the holding midfield role by Dutchman, Koen Oostenbrink.

Bradshaw, although he played most of his football in defence with his previous clubs in the UK, was O’Donnell’s choice for the crucial midfield role from the start of the campaign and in replacing him with a more natural midfielder can be seen as an admission from the head coach that the experiment didn’t work.

The other two changes saw Cameron Elliot and Horgan starting in place of Jamie Gullan and Ciarán McGuckin, both of whom were only fit enough to start on the bench.

The changes brought an early promise that Dundalk could take something from the game, for although the Shels manager Damien Duff was critical of his team’s first half performance, which he described as lacking intent and application, he also gave credit to Dundalk for resetting their stall after their poor start to the season.

If anything, Dundalk had a slight edge in the possession stakes, comfortable in defence against isolated attacks by the home side, industrious in midfield, with Oostenbrink settling well in his first start, Scott High eager to get on the ball, and Horgan providing the biggest threat from the flanks.

But, unfortunately, as with all of Dundalk’s games this season, they lacked any real penetration in the final third, for, on a number of occasions, they worked good positions on the wings with neat combination play but, inevitably, there were too many red shirts in the box against too few white ones.

That distinct lack of quality in midfield and attack, that has been evident since the opening games, was the real difference on the night between the team at the top of the table and the team at the bottom.

For all their possession in the first half, Dundalk’s best effort on goal came from a defender, their best player, Archie Davies, who got on the end of a good move that forced a smart save from Conor Kearns, and, indeed, Davies was just as alert at the other end of the field when he saved a certain goal when taking the ball off the toe of Matty Smith.

Clearly, Duff let loose his frustration at the interval at his team’s poor first half performance by their own standards, emphasising the message that he had been delivering to his players all week that they couldn’t be complacent because of Dundalk’s poor start to the season, pointing out that an O’Donnell team would never roll over.

In contrast, O’Donnell must have been relatively happy at the interval that his game-plan was working and while they didn’t create a lot of chances, they had comfortably restricted the home side to a few chances.

That all changed immediately as the second half started, for Duff roused his side from their complacency and within five minutes got their reward with the opening goal from Liam Burt.

But it was a goal that will have made unpleasant viewing for a number of Dundalk players at the video review, for Burt was allowed power his way past two midfielders and then escape a very feeble attempt at a tackle by Louie Annesley before powering his shot past Ross Munro.

Annesley, who had been on international duty with Gibraltar during the week, clearly wasn’t at his best, for he won’t want to look again at the part he played in the second Shels goal. Burt powered past him too easily for a cross that Hayden Muller skied into his own net when he attempted to clear.

Both goals were preventable and that will annoy O’Donnell most, for with his team struggling for confidence, the concession of the first goal in a tight game such as Friday’s is often the defining moment.

To their credit, the Dundalk players, who lacked nothing in effort, tried to retrieve the situation, becoming a lot more adventurous in search of a goal, finally getting the reward they deserved with their first goal from play in over 540 minutes of football when Robbie Benson did exceptionally well to get his head to a cross from substitute Mountney to steer the ball home.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t sufficient time to find an equaliser, although O’Kane, who did well when introduced in the 65th minute, might have got on the end of a Horgan cross to the far post had he not got a subtle tug from his marker.

Overall, Shels probably deserved the win, having created the better chances, and bringing the best out of Munro, but Dundalk will feel that they are just not getting the breaks in games that their opponents are getting, the own goal being a perfect illustration.

AINSCOUGH HAS TO DETERMINE IF O’DONNELL IS THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB