St Patrick's seek the positives

UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE Hannover 96 (3) v St Patrick's Athletic (0) Venue: AWD-Arena Kick-off: Tonight, 7.30pm

TO BE positive and produce a performance they can stand over is St Patrick’s Athletic’s goal in Lower Saxony tonight.

Frustrated at not having done themselves justice in losing the first leg 3-0 in Dublin, the tie is considered all but over.

But as Bohemians did in beating Kaiserslautern some 12 years ago after a 1-3 defeat in Dublin, winning away to a Bundesliga side is not regarded as an impossibility for St Patrick’s.

St Patricks manager Liam Buckley jokingly reiterated his quip from after the first leg when he said they were going to win the return 4-0, before answering realistically the question of St Patrick’s achieving anything close to that.

“They played well last week while we were a little bit disappointed with our performance,” he said. “We felt that one or two of the goals were poor defensively.

“That said, they are a top quality team. From where we are at, we want to try to win the game. If we won the game 1-0 it would be fantastic. If we drew the game it would be a decent performance. That’s what our objective is, to try to get something out of the game.

“We will play with pride and try to get some sort of a result. We need to be a little more positive rather than safe, as we were last week.”

St Patrick’s are likely to be unchanged from the first leg.