Shamrock Rovers resume their finely balanced Europa League against Progrès Niederkorn this evening in Tallaght, where Pat Fenlon will be hoping his side can build on the scoreless draw achieved last Tuesday and progress to the next round.
The Dubliner is again without his most experienced two midfielders, Keith Fahy and Stephen McPhail, both of whom are facing several weeks on the sidelines, while Conor Kenna and Ryan Brennan look set to start the game on the bench as they recover from injuries.
"We'll be much as we were last week out there," says Fenlon who, like his opposite number Olivier Ciancanelli, suggests that sides will see themselves as having a serious shot at progressing.
Cooler conditions
Home advantage, suggests Fenlon, could be key with the cooler conditions, he hopes, allowing Rovers play somewhat faster football against a side that has played just one competitive game – last Tuesday’s – this season. “It was quite slow over there and we’d hope that this game will have a higher tempo to it,” he says.
Having struggled to get an awful lot of information on Niederkorn before the first leg he is, he says, happier now that he knows more about what to expect from the Luxembourgers and has been able to prepare his players accordingly.
The money involved for winning tonight "is huge" to the club, admits Fenlon, who spent much of yesterday's pre-match press conference attempting to divert attention from the growing sense Rovers will sign Damien Duff over the coming week or so.
No money
The former international’s financial demands are said to be modest and the €200,000 in additional prize money that a win tonight would bring would certainly make it easily affordable, although Fenlon insists that his previous position that there is no money in his budget to sign any more players remains unchanged.
The manager has expressed the hope that he might add a striker to the squad and the expectation is that the cost of bringing in Duff might be covered by a sponsorship deal.
“So if anything happens then well and good, but I don’t have any money to spend on a player unless we get through,” he said.
