O’Donnell must get his tactics right if Dundalk are to advance in the cup

It’s make or break for Dundalk next Friday as far as their season is concerned, as they head to Eamonn Deacy Park to take on runaway First Division leaders Galway United in the cup.

The Tribesmen are the huge underdogs going into what will be a sellout game on the Atlantic seaboard.

I do not see it like this at all. This is a game I would be very worried about. Galway with home advantage can knock Dundalk out of the cup. For Dundalk, the stakes cannot be any higher. Lose and the Gates of the Aviva will be slammed shut on them.

The route to Europe is also shut down immediately.

Dundalk are going through a terrible spell in the league right now. They have won only one of their last five games and lie in 6th place.

Last Friday week’s defeat against Derry City all but closed Dundalk’s route to Europe through the league.

Missing out on Europe will be financially huge for Dundalk. It will set the club back a lot for next season. This year Dundalk will get around €400,000 for their European adventure this season. Wipe that off the club’s balance sheet for next season and it is sure to have serious repercussions.

Dundalk’s away record has been very poor. They have won just twelve away games domestically since Stephen O’Donnell took over at Oriel last season. Ten of these were in the league combining this season and last. One was in the FAI cup.

Last season Dundalk beat Wexford in the 2nd round of the cup. This season they beat Bray Wanderers away from home 1-0.

On Friday next, it will be a year to the date that First Division Waterford knocked Dundalk out of the cup with a 3-1 score line.

The Galway team to face Dundalk on Friday are much better than the Waterford team that knocked Dundalk out of the cup last season.

The huge crowd will easily outnumber the Dundalk away support. This will be a huge asset to the men from the west. The fact that they also have promotion back to the Premier Division all but sewn up also means Galway will go into the game under no pressure at all.

Dundalk’s goal scoring away record domestically has also been very poor. They have only managed to score fourteen goals. Thirteen of these were in the league and one was in the cup against Bray Wanderers. Dundalk have also had a number of injury worries confirmed by manager Stephen O’Donnell after the Derry game.

These injuries were pre the Derry game. Andy Boyle sustained a calf muscle injury in the week of the build up to the Derry City game. However, he had surprisingly been left on the bench for a couple of games before the Derry game without an injury.

John Martin and Louie Annesley had hamstring injuries which caused them to miss the Derry game. Ryan O’Kane has missed the last three league games with a shin injury picked up in the Bray game. He may or may not be fit. Hopefully the news will be good on all these players as their return to the first team would be a huge plus.

It was great to see Robbie Benson back in the team coming on as a sub against Derry City. John Mountney is also fit again, having been out for most of this season and last with an injury. On their day, Benson and Mountney are players you would automatically put into your first team. But John has been so unlucky with injuries I would only ease him slowly back into the first team. I would also think that Robbie Benson would be a great boost to have on the bench and to be able to bring him on when needed.

Galway had a 4-1 away win against Bray wanderers last Friday night. Stephen Walsh got a hat trick while David Hurley struck for the other goal. The westerners top the table 15 points clear of second placed Waterford United. They have a staggering goal difference of plues 62.

So if anyone thinks this will be easy for Dundalk, think again. Galway are also just a point away from the league title. They are managed by an old foe of the club, John Caulfield. Caulfield deprived Dundalk from winning the cup on two occasions during the Stephen Kenny era when he was the boss at Cork City. He also prevented Dundalk from winning the league four times in a row when Cork won the double in 2017.

Galway also have another old foe in their team. Bellurgan man in Conor McCormack. Conor is the Galway skipper. He is still a terrific player. I often wonder why Conor never had a spell with Dundalk. He has had success away from Oriel. And there is nothing he would love more to do than knock Dundalk out of the cup.

There is no doubting Dundalk are the stronger side. But it all depends on the way Stephen O’Donnell goes about picking his side. If Andy Boyle is fit, he should be centre half with Darren Brownlie. Archie Davies and Darragh Leahy should sit in as full backs. In centre midfield, there is no reason why Paul Doyle and Greg Sloggett could not be in the engine room. Daryl Horgan and Daniel Kelly could play on the wing. Johannes Yi-Koko could be the link man in front of the 4 midfielders with Pat Hoban up front. Sam Durant is another possibility depending on players’ fitness.

Paul Doyle is a player who Dundalk have not played much this season. He has been hit with injury. But he has been on the bench these past few weeks. He came on as a sub in the Derry game. Greg Sloggett amazingly sat out the Derry game. He is the only midfielder Dundalk have that can provide some steel in the centre of midfield.

But I think Doyle can as well. This depends on his fitness and the hope is he has no injuries. But O’Donnell must play Sloggett and use Brownlie for the entire 90 minutes. He is an excellent centre half. But how can he settle when he has a different partner with him almost on a weekly basis. Darragh Leahy just did not have a good game against Derry. He is not a centre half. He is a key defender.

The Dundalk defence must be unyielding. The midfield must be like a ring of steel. And Pat Hoban at his best will score goals for fun. One thing is for sure. Nathan Shepherd must get the protection of his back 4 and midfield. He has not been getting that at all this season. O’Donnell must pick the right defence. If they do not click, I think Galway will win. Dundalk just do not play well away from home. If they do not turn this terrible facet to their play around, they will be out of the cup just after 10pm on Friday. You can see the sun go down on Galway Bay in the West. Hopefully it will not go down on their cup hopes as well.

Last week I spoke to John Murphy of Dundalk FM and also an icon of club history. Dundalk have lost a lot of players through injury this season. John Says a successful team will always come with having a settled team. He says there are so many changes to the side on a weekly basis, that where he sees Dundalk going wrong is that they are not playing the same back four every week. He said that against Derry, Hayden Muller was playing at left full and amazingly seemed to edge himself into midfield. He said the trouble Derry caused Dundalk was all coming from the right. John says Paul McMullen the Derry winger was punishing Dundalk all night and yet there seemed to be nobody there to cover him.

John says it was amazing to see Dundalk players just watch on as Will Patching ran from the halfway line covering 35 yards out. He laid the ball off to Paul McMullen who returned it to Patching. Totally unmarked Patching shot home. Derry ripped Dundalk asunder. The Dundalk FM commentator says that Derry’s Paul McMullen was given the freedom of Oriel Park to do so as he pleased. He says there were too many Dundalk players looking at each other and none taking the lead to do anything to prevent the goals.

John says if he was the centre half on the right side that made the mistake for Derry’s first goal, he would expect his fellow centre half to give him a piece of his mind because he did not do his job. He also says if he was the player that made the mistake, he would be worried if he was going to play the next game.

John says he wonders if some of the Dundalk players wonder about how poorly they sometimes perform. He adds that if they knew they would be dropped for the next game, then that would be good. He adds maybe they do know they will be dropped. John raised the question if some of the players feel they can put in a poor game and get away with it. They must not be allowed to think this, he says.

John says the players surely know what the repercussions are for playing bady. That would mean they could be out of the team for weeks, John says that a player knows when they play badly. He said if someone clapped him on the back after a game and he knew he had played badly, he would not accept that.

He adds that the first round cup performance by Dundalk made him think that if these be repeated that they would be up there battling for the league. He says it’s hard to understand how the players would not be motivated for other games in the way they were for the Shamrock Rovers cup game. The Dundalk FM chief commentator says a team must be hungry for every game. This, he says, is the secret to success.

John says that with John Martin injured, the team does not seem to have the players to get the ball into Pat Hoban. He says Pat Hoban likes to hold the ball and wait for runners coming in to help. The man who played with the late great Jimmy Hasty looks directly in my direction and asks a question I just simply could not answer.

He asks where the runners are to help Hoban? The answer is no one. John says there is nobody coming from the midfield and very often the wingers are 30 yards each side of him.

But John then says he is confident Dundalk will beat Galway in the cup on Friday. He says he is hoping that Stephen O’Donnell can get the back four right. He adds it’s time for the Dundalk boss to rid the defence of its frailties. He says that he is confident that he knows Dundalk in the Premier Division and Galway in the First means that there are two different wavelengths there.

He says players do not think as quickly in the first Division as players do in the Premier Division. John adds that this is where Dundalk’s professionalism should show. He adds that there is a lot of inexperience in the Galway side mixed up with experience. Dundalk he says, should beat Galway as long as Stephen O’Donnell can get his players to approach the game in the right way

Galway will go at Dundalk right from the start. John says that the Dundalk players must not allow themselves to become unsettled by this. I raised the point that last season First Division Waterford totally outplayed Dundalk at this stage of the competition in Waterford.

John was quick to reply that once again in that game; it was the defence that let Dundalk down. Brian Gartland had been out for a long spell through injury coming up to that game. He started. I was amazed that he was starting in such an important game. But Brian had nothing to do with the defeat. Another factor that amazed me was that Ryan O’Kane was left on the bench and only brought in when the game was gone. John says the Dundalk defence must be tightened. The winners must be in midfield and he says Dundalk must take their chances.

John Murphy says it is imperative that Dundalk get an early goal. He believes if this happens, Galway heads will go down because they know they are up against a team from the Premier Division. He says Galway will know this and that this will affect them as players.

John says that Dundalk are going to have yo be out of the traps immediately and go at them at a speed of one hundred miles an hour. He says the need to want to win must be in the Dundalk dressing room on Friday before they walk across the white line. He says if they have the belief in themselves and collectively that there is no doubt that they can beat Galway.

John says there is no better incentive for the team than they can go on and win the cup. He says he played with Dundalk for years and with many other clubs but never won a cup.

But John did play with teams that won leagues, including Dundalk. John says with confidence that if Dundalk can play the same way as they did against Shamrock Rovers in the cup then they can go on and win it. He says emphatically that he and the Dundalk supporters are not asking for miracles. The talent is there. He tells me to be in no doubt of that. He says the team must not be allowed to just stroll through the Galway game without being woken up. He says Dundalk needs to be in Europe next year.

Otherwise, the budget is down and the team will find it hard to compete against other clubs.

He astutely points out that Drogheda will be getting a massive financial boost, having been taken over by a new consortium.

Shelbourne have been taken over by Hull City and are already reaping the dividends.

John added that supporters are in a situation of wondering whether Nathan Shepherd will be at the club next season. His contract is finished at the end of the season. Dundalk he says, should have dealt with that issue at the start of the season. John described Nathan as the best goalkeeper in the League of Ireland. He says that he would be very unhappy if Nathan goes at the end of the season. He feels that if the club knows Nathan is worth giving an additional wage rise, then he should be given it.

John described Nathan as the start of the spine of the team. He says that spine is always its strength. He says a strong central physical midfield partnership is also needed as part of the spine of a successful team. Add in a good striker and a good centre half, then you will be able to compete at the top.

John says he is always optimistic about the club. He says that all he can hope for is that the club has a budget next season that will compete with Pat’s, Bohemians, Shelbourne and Drogheda. He says the club will never be able to compete financially with clubs like Derry city or Shamrock Rovers.

He adds that he is behind Stephen O’Donnell all the way. So am I. I think he is a good manager. But John says he has to correct or deal with the issues that are hitting his team at the moment and that is to stop giving away sloppy goals.

John emphasises that he just wants the board, Stephen O’Donnell and the supporters to be together and live in harmony.

Have a safe week and let us hope Dundalk can get past Galway in the cup on Friday night.