Preview: St Pats vs Derry City

Saint Patrick’s Athletic play host to Derry City tonight in the top of the table clash at Richmond Park in the first of two meetings between the sides in 4 days. The Saints travel to the Brandywell on Monday for the Setanta Sports Cup clash. Both sides are unbeaten in the league so far.

St Pat’s only injury is Noel Haverty (ankle) and Joseph Ndo looks set to make an appearance after taking a full part in training all week. St Pat’s coach Johnny McDonnell expects a big night across the fixture list, “With ourselves playing Derry and Rovers playing Bohemians something is going to give at the top of the table.”

Derry boss Stephen Kenny has a string of injuries ahead of the clash with Sammy Morrow (cruciate ligament), Darren Quigley (wrist), Kevin Deery (cartilage) and Mark McChrystal (metatarsal) and Sean Hargan all out for the Candystripes. Despite the long list of absentees, Derry have performed impressively up to now and Kenny feels as though a point has been proven to their detractors, “We've been able to miss those good players and still get results. It shows that we have a little bit of depth that maybe people felt we didn't have. Our defence had been coming in for a bit of criticism from certain quarters but they were excellent last week and that gives you a platform to do well.”

With both sides in goal scoring form, an open an interesting contest is expected. The game kicks off at 7.45pm.