City manager Ruaidhri Higgins
Manager Ruaidhri Higgins has suggested his side probably need to win all six of their remaining matches if they were to have any chance of taking the title race down to the wire.
They are looking to avenge a 1-0 defeat by Bit O’Red at the Showgrounds – a night which they may look back on as one of the games in which they failed to find their rhythm – and why they may come off second best.
Higgins is very much taking the approach of at least trying to put pressure on first place.
“We have to find a way of going there and picking up three points, and having lost in Sligo earlier in the season, it will be far from easy” he said.
“We’ve been playing really welll over the past few months and as I said after the Rovers game, I thought we the better side again last Friday night.
“It was very frustrating to concede in the manner we did, but there’s more football to be played and we move on.
“The Showgrounds has been a difficult venue for Derry City down through the years.
“Sligo always seem to raise their game when we come to town but we have to be ready for that. We have to be switched on from the start-in and out of possession- and give ourselves the best possible chance to win the game.
“It’s out of our hands now but we will just focus on the things we can control and see where that takes us.”
The Candystripes will be without Shane McEleney following his red card last week, but are otherwise expected to have the same squad available for tonight’s crunch game.
Sligo lifted some of the strain on their club last after a miserable losing run without a goal, beating UCD.
Said Sligo boss John Russell: “It’s brilliant to have another home game. It was a positive night last week getting the three points.
“”I thought we were fully deserving of the win last week, it was great to get two goals, it could have had a couple more and we kept a clean sheet. We want to build on that. It was a different type of performance from us and I was happy with it overall.
“The games against Derry have been very close. They’re a really good side of course and we’ve done well against them this year, albeit we could have got more out of the games.
“We’ll bring a game plan into Friday and we come into it with the confidence from last week.
Mark Byrne, Gary Boylan and Will Fitzgerald remain out with long-term injuries.
St Patrick’s Athletic v Dundalk, Richmond Park, 7.45pm
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