SSE AIRTRICITY LEAGUE
Friday April 18 2022
UCD Bowl, 5pm
Live on LOITV
Bohemians travel to Belfield this evening determined to get back to winning ways after disappointing results in two Dublin derbies.
Bohs first lost 1-0 away to Shamrock Rovers last Friday before salvaging a 1-1 draw at home to Shelbourne on Monday having fallen behind and gone down to 10 men.
While manager Keith Long has been disappointed with those performances and results, the hard graft he is seeing on the training ground and the resilience his side showed, despite being down a man, to claim a point against Shels give him confidence that form will improve.
Long said: “We had two disappointing results and the players are all working extremely hard – on the pitch, in the training ground and in our analysis of games – to improve performances.
“Shelbourne make things difficult for teams to break them down the way they set up to defend but it was a very poor goal for us to concede. But the players showed great resilience to bounce back from that and from going down to 10 men as well.
“We haven’t performed to our ability yet and drawing games is not where we want to be. Pitches across the league are very heavy at the moment, which affects the way we want to play but we know we can and have to play better regardless of that.
“We have kept a lot of possession in games but we need to be creating more in the box, and we need to be hitting the target.
“There has been plenty of effort but we haven’t shown the quality we are capable of yet – the execution of that final pass, working the opposition keeper.
“But I believe we will get stronger. The players are committed to improving performances. They want to play better and are training very well.
“They care about playing for Bohs, they are really up for it, and they are looking forward to the challenge.
“We are looking forward to playing UCD who are a young team but they try to play football the right way.
“We expect another big travelling crowd behind us in Belfield this evening – the support has been brilliant again this year – and it is up to us to excite those supporters and to bring them with us.”
TEAM NEWS
Rory Feely is suspended following his red card against Shelbourne on Monday, which sees Cian Byrne promoted to the first-team squad from the U19s as a result.
James Finnerty (knee) and Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe (ankle) remain out but the latter returned to training this week.
