Derry City prepare for Waterford with Ruaidhri Higgins admitting: "We need to do more"
City without a win in three as they face high-flying Waterford
Derry City vs. Waterford
Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium
Today, 6pm
Ruaidhri Higgins acknowledges his team has to do more as Derry City host in-form Waterford this evening hoping to end a run of three games without a win.
The Candystripes are underperforming in a number of areas as they head into a week in which they face newly-promoted Waterford and Galway United at home, both of which can overtake the Candystripes in the coming weeks if they win each of their two games in hand.
Friday night’s 0-0 at Dundalk was a disappointing performance and result, but it also continued City’s poor performances in front of goal of late, with the team managing just five goals in seven games across the month of May. Only Dundalk, with three goals, managed less.
That is in stark contrast to tonight’s opponents Waterford, who have scored 14 goals across the same period. In fact, Keith Long’s side are easily the form team in the Premier Division, winning five of their last six games since losing to Derry City at the RSC back in April. Since that game, Derry City have won just twice in seven games.
Speaking at Oriel Park after Friday night’s game, Higgins admitted he was annoyed with the fact that his team have managed just eight wins from 20 games this season.
“Of course I am,” he said. “We want to win more games. It's an extremely tight league. There's no game where you look at it and go “That's a win, and that's a win.” That's gone. Every single win is hard earned and let's hope it's 10 from 22 by the end of the week.”
“We have to grab games by the scruff of the neck and start winning more tight games because if we're to do anything, if we're to achieve anything, that's what you need to do to achieve success. “We just need to win our games. We have two home games now on Monday and Friday and we need to do whatever it takes to win them.”
Derry City have traditionally found Monday games difficult, winning just three of their last 10 and Higgins admitted that games such as these are difficult to prepare for.
“You can't obviously do as much pitch preparation as you would like given the turnover again between Friday and Monday, so it's recover and try and get the players going again and get on the pitch over the weekend and how we want to try and play,” he continued.
“It’s a six o'clock kick-off on Monday and those evening kick-offs can be quite flat and whatever, so we need everyone to get behind the team. We need our supporters to really get behind the team. We have to give the supporters something to shout about and see can we get a big three points because Monday now becomes a really, really big game.”
Underperforming
Derry City were favourites to beat bottom of the table Dundalk despite recent struggles, but the home side were arguably the better team with City goalkeeper Brian Maher the stand out performer with a number of crucial saves. It was City’s eighth draw of the season and Higgins admitted afterwards that results such as these were damaging.
“They're not ideal at all,” he said. “We need to be winning these types of games. You've tried to put a positive spin on it there that we're a point closer to the leaders, but we should be demanding that we're three points closer, especially in moments when you're on top in games.
“We started the game actually really well and made a couple of big chances, so we need to try and get ourselves in front and dominate games a bit more than what we did here. Although we did have possession, we just didn't have that sort of ruthless, I don't know, go and grab it and get it over the line and we need to start producing that if we're to do anything this year.”