Preview: Stephen Kenny has been forced to call four under-21 players into his Bohemians squad for this evening's visit of Drogheda United with injuries to a string of established players as well as the suspension of James Keddy leaving the Dalymount club's manager badly short of options.

Thomas Heary (thigh), Glen Crowe (knee and hamstring), Shay Kelly (ankle), Ken Oman (groin) and Colin Hawkins (knee), as well as long-term absentee Dave Morrison (hernia), are all out of a game in which the Dubliners will be looking for their first home win of the campaign.

Drogheda, like Dublin City who play Derry at Tolka Park, are expected to be unchanged but Derry boss Gavin Dykes is hopeful Gary Beckett may play some part for the visitors who, he says, have yet to get out their strongest 11 players for a match.

"Clive Delaney and Peter Hutton were excellent in central defence on Saturday and I have high hopes that they'll go on to become the best partnership in the league," says Dykes. "In other areas, though, I think we all feel that there's better to come. We're getting there but it's important that we continue to show an improvement during this game."

St Patrick's Athletic will be without the suspended Kharim El Khebir for the trip to Longford and manager Eamonn Collins will be hoping Paul Donnelly has recovered sufficiently from a groin strain to return at left back.

Longford, meanwhile, add Graham Gartland and Stephen Paisley to the squad that travelled to Waterford on Friday, although with doubts about Seán Prunty (knee) and Brian Byrne (groin), Alan Matthews will probably have to start with either Alan Kirby or Dessie Baker out on the wing.

"Either of them can play there so we're not badly fixed," said Matthews yesterday. "We could do with a better performance, though, because like just about everybody aside from Shelbourne so far, we've had a bit of a stop-start kick-off to the campaign and it would be nice to string a few decent results together."