Drogheda Game

[brandyball]

Ticket Details

https://www.facebook.com/137900283905/p ... 859063906/

[brandyball]

Tickets update

https://www.facebook.com/137900283905/p ... 066348906/

[brandyball]

Fats is an injury doubt, Evan McLaughlin and possibly Michael Duffy added to the squad.

[Nige92]

Fully expecting 3 points from tonight's fixture against a team that will be battling relegation.

[brandyball]

No Fats or Smith. Duffy on Bench.

https://www.facebook.com/137900283905/p ... 169713906/

[Nige92]

Looks like it'll be a 3-5-2 set up

[Nige92]

Fairly routine win. Drogheda were abject. Costly win though if Duffys injury is as bad as it looked

[eugenio]

Drogheda were abject.
Derry were ??

[stevebradley]

A comfortable 3pts tonight, but it was a very flat game and atmosphere throughout.

We had the vast majority of possession, but seem to struggle with converting that into oppooirtunities. Their keeper was dodgy from the start, yet apart from the 2 goals we didn't trouble him that much.

Hopefully it's just that the team are still gelling, but we'll need to create a lot more opportunities against the likes of St Pats. Great to get the win tonight anyway.

[Nige92]

Drogheda were abject.
Derry were ??

Comfortable! It was too easy. Derry didn't have to get out of second gear. Early goal had a big impact

[mokendismucker]

Not easy against the 2 banks of 4 but job done. Frustrating that of our star quality only Patching and McGonigle have started so far but we still have Fats Duffy and Smyth to come.

Hopefully Micky Duffy’s injury is an impact injury and we will have the full range of attacking options soon.

Pats won’t set up with 8 at the back so a totally different game in prospect. Bring it on. Onwards and upwards.

RAWA

[KEVK]

Good performance, but still room for improvement attacking wise as our main tactic is to hit balls in behind for McGonigle which worked last night but may not work against better teams.

We are still pretty poor with our passing and movement in opposition half and hopefully that will come with time.

[Big_Red]

Missed the game last night.

Was it a diamond formation in midfield with Boyce and Lafferty wide?

[KEVK]

Missed the game last night.

Was it a diamond formation in midfield with Boyce and Lafferty wide?

Was a midfield 3 of Dummigan, Thomson and Patching with Dummigan as holding midfielder. Lafferty and Boyce as wing backs. Kavanagh seemed to be playing off McGonigle but struggled to get into the game at times.

[joe3576]

Duffy now out for 6 months.

His injury and Harkin's are fundamentally due to the surface. There is no give on this pitch and both players' injuries are proof of this.

Both fairly nothing incidents, but no give on the pitch and this is what happens.

The surface needs to be ripped up and we revert back to grass, or these things will continually happen.

[KEVK]

Duffy now out for 6 months.

His injury and Harkin's are fundamentally due to the surface. There is no give on this pitch and both players' injuries are proof of this.

Both fairly nothing incidents, but no give on the pitch and this is what happens.

The surface needs to be ripped up and we revert back to grass, or these things will continually happen.

Gareth McGlynn mentioned that on commentary as well.

Club should be keeping a record of all injuries like this sustained on our home pitch and use it as leverage to get it ripped up. I would be fuming if I was a player and started getting injuries like these due to the pitch.

[rodgers]

At the very least, questions could be raised with the Council about the effect of the state of the pitch on player welfare. McEleney was also injured on that pitch for Dundalk last year and two Drogheda players went off last night as well.

[stevebradley]

The problem is that there is no clear correlation between injuries and artifical grass (academics have argued the toss over it for years). Lots of clubs have arrtificial grass now, so if it was genuionely an issue then you'd see lots of injuries too at teams like Dundalk, Institute, Coleraine, Cliftonville, Crusaders etc

The council instaled a very expensive surface in 2018 that has at least a 10 year life-span. And they did so to maximise the usage of the pitch. I can't see them ripping it out any time soon. The window to try to get that done would be when the pitch is at the end of its lifespan - but even then, grass would limit how much other activity the council could rent the pitch out for. At the end of the day it's a council-owned facility for the whole city, and not just a stadium for DCFC. If we want to call the shots on the surface we play on etc, then we should be looking at our own stadium somewhere (which I think we should be planning anyway personally, for a variety of reasons). We won't meet our full potential as a club whilst we're tied to a council-owned facility.

[mokendismucker]

Think Duffy’s injury was more to do with Cowan than the pitch. Nothing at all to do with Fats injury when playing with Dundalk.

Also, McGonigle quite likely wouldn’t have scored the goal he did against Rovers on our old surface as the ‘roll over’ he did to beat the last defender would have bobbled………

So pros and cons to the plastic but some have short memories. The brandy pitch was never in decent nick at this time of the year. And it doesn’t matter what surface you are playing on if players hit you late there is nothing you can do.

[brandyball]

Think Duffy’s injury was more to do with Cowan than the pitch. Nothing at all to do with Fats injury when playing with Dundalk.

Also, McGonigle quite likely wouldn’t have scored the goal he did against Rovers on our old surface as the ‘roll over’ he did to beat the last defender would have bobbled………

So pros and cons to the plastic but some have short memories. The brandy pitch was never in decent nick at this time of the year. And it doesn’t matter what surface you are playing on if players hit you late there is nothing you can do.

Liam Coyle said the pitch gives us a distinct advange as other Teams don't realise how big the pitch is and how fast the surface plays.