Cork City v St. Patrick's Athletic, 2.00pm
Galway United's 3-1 home win over Limerick on Friday night won't have calmed any nerves at Richmond Park as St Patrick's Athletic have now dropped to 11th place in the Airtricity League table.
St Pat's have played two games less than the Terryland Park side but their form this season wouldn't give their supporters much confidence that those games in hand won't simply lead to a worsening goal difference.
Not least because one of those games involves a visit to Turners Cross, where Cork City still maintain a 100 per cent record this season.
In recent weeks, Cork haven't just been beating teams at home, they've been demolishing them.
Their last four home games in the League have yielded a couple of 5-0 wins against Finn Harps and Drogheda United and latterly a pair of 4-1 victories over Shamrock Rovers and Limerick.
And on Thursday evening, they survived a couple of early glitches to beat Levadia Tallinn 4-2 on the night and 6-2 on aggregate to progress to the next phase of the Europa League.
The only clouds on the horizon for the hosts are the looming departures of Seanie Maguire and Kevin O'Connor to Preston.
The pair play their final home game for Cork City today.
Team news:
Cork City: Johnny Dunleavy and John Kavanagh are both ruled out through injury while Jimmy Keohane is suspended.
St Patrick's: The Saints will be without the services of Gavin Peers as he recovers from a hamstring injury, while an ankle problem continue to sideline Darren Dennehy however the defender is close to a return to training. New signings Killian Brennan, Owen Garvan and Jordi Balk come into contention, however the Saints await international clearance for Dutch signing Balk.
Gaffer talk:
John Caulfield (Cork City)
"We have fantastic support, it is Seanie and Kevin’s last home league game and I am sure a lot of people will want to come out and see them as well. For us, it is about going out and winning the match, because we are going for the league title.
"It is a huge game for us. We are not looking to next Thursday at all, we are looking at what would be a vital three points for us. We have competition for places, we have a lot of good players and a lot of guys who want to come in, so that is a real positive for us."
"There is always the danger that people switch off and lose focus, but that hasn’t happened this year and I would be disappointed if that happened tomorrow.
Ultimately, it is up to me to keep the lads focused and tuned in, so I would expect that won’t be an issue. We trained this morning, everyone was in good shape and looking forward to the game; they know how big the match is and they know we need to win to keep the pressure on."
Liam Buckley (St Patrick's Athletic)
"Cork have been in tremendous form since the start of the 2017 season. Having won nearly every game in all competitions played to date, we are under no illusions that it will be anything other than a tough game.
"However we know from the last outing both in Richmond Park in the league and earlier in the season in the EA Sports Cup that we can cause them problems.
We’ve got to travel to Turner’s Cross with the right mindset and we can follow that up with a performance, we believe we can come away with a result."
Derry City v Sligo Rovers, 2.30pm
Only three days after the hosts travelled to their ground to play a home game in European competition, Sligo Rovers make the trip to Buncrana today to face Derry City in the League.
Derry were thoroughly outclassed by their intimidating Danish opponents Midtjylland in the Europa League on Thursday evening, ultimately slumping to a dispiriting 10-2 defeat on aggregate.
Their league form has also been patchy in the last month with a frustrating 0-0 draw away to bottom placed Drogheda and a 3-2 defeat by Bray Wanderers seeing them lose ground against their rivals in the battle for third spot.
Sligo Rovers, meanwhile, arrive into this fixture after securing a much-needed win against Shamrock Rovers last weekend but sit just one point clear of the drop zone in the league.
Team news:
Sligo: John Russell is suspended following a red card against the Hoops, but Kyle Callan-McFadden returns from a ban. Rhys McCabe is set for his Rovers debut after signing this month. Benny Igiehon has not received international clearance in time, but Gary Armstrong comes back into contention following his loan spell at Ballinamallard.
Gaffer talk:
Gerard Lyttle (Sligo Rovers)
"I keep saying, I really don't care about Galway, Finn Harps and Drogheda's results. We need to focus on Sligo Rovers. We have to worry about our own performances and our own results. If we do that I think you'll see a difference. If you look around what's going on around us, you're taking your eye on the ball. Hopefully what we do is enough to keep us going."
