Waterford United may have closed the gap on the leaders Dundlak on Friday night last but the Blues manager Gareth Cronin was not a happy man after the game. Their 3-1 victory over Kildare County allied to Dundalk’s defeat in Limerick and Shelbourne’s loss to Sporting Fingal means the Waterford are right back in the promotion picture.
“I was very disappointed with our performance tonight,” said the manager. “We looked laboured and sloppy, especially in the second half. I wanted a good display from the team ahead of next Friday’s massive game away to Shelbourne. We have lost away to the top two this season and I want that to change next week, but this performance was not what I wanted ahead of next Fridays match.”
He added: “We will have to improve greatly. We played well last week in Dundalk but lost so I suppose if I can take something positive from this game is the fact that we played badly and won. Kildare are not up to much. All they did was sit back and allow us have the ball but we did little with it. We should have won a lot easier and with goal difference coming in to play we should have had more to show for our efforts.”
Cronin did however make it clear that his side will adopt a positive approach to Friday’s game in Tolka Park. “My days of playing 4-5-1 are over against the likes of Shelbourne. I have had a pop at the players and hopefully they will take on board what I had to say. It will be a physical game but we will be positive and go and try and win the match. If we do win it would put us six points clear of them and that would be a big total for them to pull back. The players at this club must keep in mind that we could close in on the league title if they play to their full potential and not as they did tonight.”
