Team News : Russell Rallies Reds ahead of Dublin Derby Clash | OneFootball

Having served a one-match suspension last week in Galway, Shelbourne FC Head Coach John Russell reflected on the 1-1 draw when he spoke to ShelsTV ahead of tomorrow’s Dublin derby in Tallaght.

“We were obviously frustrated that we conceded so late. We were 90 seconds or so from getting a big 3 points on the road and I thought the performance was very good. We limited Galway to very few chances in the game and in the second half we created enough chances to put the game out of sight and ultimately, we paid the price for not doing so.”

Looking ahead to Friday’s live Virgin Media game, Russell spoke about the importance of focussing on the positives this week in training: “You can’t lose sight of the positives from the Galway game. We reviewed it and saw a lot of good stuff and things that we’ve been working on in training. But we know we need to be more ruthless, to be killers when we’re on top and to put the game to bed.”

The club has recently announced 3 re-signings and 1 new player in the door in Marco Untergrabner; Russell emphasised the importance of stability and planning ahead: “There has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes in the last few weeks. Continuity is very important and to try and keep your best players of course. Those players who have signed new deals really understand what it means and what it takes to play for this club and that’s very important. I think Marco will be a very good addition; we need to manage him as he gets up to speed but I know that he will be a good player for us.”

Friday will come a little to soon for Untergrabner, but John Russell is hoping to have him available in the near future: “We’re looking at that other Galway United fixture at the end of the month for Marco. That’s probably the target for him. He came from a league that was out of season, and he also had a small procedure done, so we’ll hopefully see him at the end of the month.”

Speaking on the health of the squad at large, the Head Coach had positive news: “We’re looking good; John Martin is making good progress with his calf issue and we’re hoping to integrate him into training next week to build him up for the Drogheda/Dundalk games. Sam Bone is looking at the Galway game at the end of the month, similar to Marco. Apart from that everyone else is back training with the squad and back available, Roddy (Freitas) is also back from suspension, so they are all positives for us.”

Ahead of tomorrow night’s Ringsend derby, Russell concluded on what the messaging has been in-house this week, and what the fans should expect: “We want to win the game. The approach will be us wanting to execute our gameplan, building on the performances of our previous games and building up our on-field connections. Dublin derbies are massive and they don’t come much bigger than going to the home of the champions. We need to try and get on the front foot and look to start climbing up that table.”

Kick-off is 8pm in Tallaght and the match is live on Virgin Media.