Joey O’Brien: Time to Take the Bull by the Horns | OneFootball

The Champions are on the road again tomorrow as they travel to Eamonn Deacy Park to face Galway United in the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division (7:45pm – live on LOITV)

Joey O’Brien has a near full strength squad to choose from for the trip West.

O’Brien delivered a squad update late on Thursday to ShelbourneFC.ie: “Been a good few days training, we’ve a fully fit squad and everyone’s raring to go. No new injuries. Sam Bone is back; he was left out Monday with a dead leg, he took a bang but he’s in good shape. Kerr is good to go too, started last Friday but wasn’t fully right, rested then and back fit now for tomorrow.”

After an intense run of games, the Reds returned from the summer break and faced into a run of five games in fifteen days. O’Brien feels the mental toll of that is almost as daunting as the physical toll:

“Since the break, starting with Rovers, it’s been really intense, straight into Pats and Derry, all tight games against good opposition. Nothing easy in any of them. Then three in a week, followed by Waterford, with everything that happened there, it’s been an emotional and tough few days. But the squad’s shown real strength through it all. Even against Rovers at home, then we went into Monday against Waterford, we looked fit and powerful, especially in the last half hour. They could barely get out of their half.”

This is the third meeting between the sides this season, with both games home and away ending in draws. Reflecting on their last trip West, O’Brien said: “It was a game where we played well and had good chances, I thought we had the majority of the play. It was a freakish goal that decided it, the own goal. It’s always a tough place to go, and their home form is strong, just look at the last game, they beat Pats. They’ll cause you problems, they’ve quality, so our lads need to be on it and up for the fight. It’s about trying to impose our game on them, taking the bull by the horns, and bringing it to the level we know we have, but maybe that we’ve not shown enough in recent weeks.”

After a challenging few weeks O’Brien admits confidence can take a dent, but knows they have the quality to play through a tough patch: “We need a win, that does wonders for confidence. Some of the individual mistakes are hard to pinpoint, and while we’re not giving up many chances in most games, it’s been a case of one really poor mistake costing us a few times this season. Can be a vicious cycle then the more you think about not making them, the more likely they are to happen. You can’t dwell on it. You just have to put it out of your mind. The fact is we haven’t kept enough clean sheets. That’s something we want to address. Against Pats, we did keep one, and to be honest, especially in the second half, they had us under pressure for 20–25 minutes, but I never really felt threatened. The lads just looked like they were on it. I didn’t think we’d concede, and that’s where you want to be. But when you keep giving away goals like the first the other night, the players know themselves, if you’re conceding two, it’s going to be hard to win games.”