Longford Town in need of a win at home to Wexford FC

When you look at the First Division table we can see that the Town are second from bottom and that comes for different reasons. 

Last weekend Longford travelled to Eamonn Deacy Park and despite a good first half performance the second half performance was much like most of a season, a bit of a disaster. 

The team that started on Friday night was a shadow of what would be the Town's starting eleven if all players were available. A total of twelve players were missing for various reasons, some suspended and the rest were carrying different injuries.

Also the news filtered through during the week that Aodh Dervin's loan period ended and that was an awful downer when travelling to the runaway league leaders. When you have Dervin missing, club captain Shane Elworthy out injured, the impressive Kyle O'Connor missing his third game due to suspension plus Darragh Lynch also suspended while the experienced Derek Daly once again missed the game through injury. 

Not for the first time this season manager Henderson had to play games with depleted sides and he must be complimented for giving the young players their chance to play in the senior team. 

Rumour has it that there will be new arrivals in the coming weeks when the July transfer window opens. Manager Henderson has a chance to look at the overall situation player wise for the remaining sixteen games of the season. 

With twenty games gone the Town have only four wins to date - two over Kerry, one against runaway league leaders Galway and the other was against Saturday night's visitors Wexford. 

The fact that the Town have beaten Galway and have drawn twice against second in the table Waterford shows that we have a team capable of getting very good results against the top clubs.

 Unfortunately results against the mid table teams have been disappointing and that will have to change. 

Our visitors Wexford, who sit in 6th place in the table, are only a win outside the fourth play-off spot at the moment and they look to be in with a good chance of making the top 5. 

Last week they travelled to Finn Park to take on full time Finn Harps and went home with three valuable points from a one nil victory. 

The only goal of the game came from Aaron Dobbs who scored the all important winner in the 64th minute. Town supporters will remember Aaron from his time here and he was very popular with the Longford supporters. 

The Town and Wexford first met back in mid April when the visitors went away with a 2-1 victory.  Dobbs was the Wexford hero, scoring both goals for his team. Francis Campbell was the Town's goalscorer on that occasion. 

The Town travelled to Ferrycarrig Park in mid May and on that occasion Stephen Henderson's team came away with an excellent three nil victory. 

Hero of the day was new signing Beineon O'Brien-Whitmarsh who scored twice in the 40th and 64th minute while Josh Giurgi added goal number three in the 43rd minute. This was a great victory for the Town.

Former Town assistant manager James Keddy is the manager of Wexford and he is doing a very good job in his first managerial appointment. James was Gary Cronin's assistant last year in Longford and by all accounts he is a very shrewd young manager.

 Wexford's record to date in the league (20 games played) is 9 defeats, 4 draws and seven victories and they have 25 points which is 7 points better than the Town. 

There is no doubt that Town supporters may know more of the visiting Wexford team than the current Town squad. 

The Wexford starting eleven against Finn Harps included five former Town players while they also had three other former Town players on the bench. 

It's fair to say that Karl Chambers, who now plays with Wexford, would have more appearances for the Town than possibly all the current squad. 

Karl was Mr versatility for the Town and one of the most popular players to wear the red and black over the years. 

Keddy made a very shrewd signing since the season started when he got former striker Danny Furlong to resign. Furlong and Dobbs are a good striking combination.

All Town supporters will have their fingers crossed that Shane Elworthy will be fit to return to the starting eleven soon. 

Having travelled to Ferrycarrig Park and coming away with a three nil victory shows that this team are capable of picking up three valuable points on Saturday next. Let's hope that the Town supporters, who must be very disillusioned at the moment, will come out in big numbers to Bishopsgate on Saturday night next.

SSE Airtricity League First Division

Longford Town v Wexford FC

at Bishopsgate 

Saturday July 1

Kick off 7.30pm