Shamrock Rovers manager Liam Buckley will wait until close to kick-off time this evening before deciding on whether to start Tony Grant against Swedish side Djurgardens in the UEFA Cup qualifying round tie at Tolka Park.
Shamrock Rovers v Djurgardens Kick-off: 7.45 The Dublin club are certain to be without Derek Tracey (Achilles) and Marc Kenny (suspended), but the loss of their most influential attacking player, who picked up a thigh injury in Sunday's draw with UCD, would be a particular blow.
Though their best days were close to a century ago and their last league title came back in 1966, Djurgardens look certain to present a formidable challenge for a team who have not won a league game since the opening day of the season and who have struggled to score.
Buckley saw tonight's opponents last week when they beat local Stockholm rivals AIK Solna 3-0 in front of just over 28,000 supporters, and admitted afterwards that his players will have to raise their game dramatically if they are to survive against their full-time opponents.
Since that game, the Swedes were beaten 4-3 at home by league leaders Malmo and have slipped back to fourth in the championship table, but their coaching team of Zoran Lukic and Soren Akeby will still have been encouraged ahead of this tie by the fact that their leading scorers, Andreas Johansson and Kim Kallstrom, managed three goals between them at the weekend and one apiece against AIK.
The defeat was the first suffered by Djurgardens in seven games, starkly different to Rovers' form in recent weeks, but Buckley insists that his team continues to improve and that they should have beaten UCD on Sunday.
The fitness of Grant will go a long way towards deciding whether Buckley persists with the three-man attack employed without any great success on a few occasions so far.
He will also be influenced, though, by the fact that the Swedes tend to play 4-3-3 and they seem certain to come to Dublin looking to grab at least one away goal.
- Emmet Malone
Varteks v Dundalk Kick-off: 7.0
Dundalk return to European competition after a seven-year absence to meet Croatian opposition. In many ways it is a tie deprived of glamour, yet the expectation of difficulty can be measured by the fact that Dundalk's manager, Martin Murray, intends to forsake his usual 4-4-2 formation for a conservative 4-5-1 shape.
His fear is drawn partly from Varteks' performance in Europe last season, when they knocked Aston Villa out of the UEFA Cup, but also from the two decades he spent playing against some of Europe's best sides.
"Among others I faced Tottenham, Ajax and Red Star Belgrade over the years, and learned that if you give teams who are technically better than you too much space or respect then you will be punished severely.
"With this in mind, our intention this evening will be to pack midfield and to try and win the battle there. In any game it is important to keep some form of control in the early stages but in European games, one of your chief concerns has to be to avoid the concession of an early goal. If we can take encouragement from how we are playing then we can change things. We have options on the bench."
One of those options is their veteran striker, Garry Haylock, whose two goals in last season's FAI Cup final against Bohemians resulted in Dundalk causing a major upset to qualify for this year's UEFA Cup. However the 30-year-old hasn't played since that game, in which time he has undergone an exploratory operation on his right knee.
He played a small part in training last night and could even start this evening's game if another injury doubt, Noel Melvin, fails to recover from the knock he took on his right leg against Sligo Rovers last Thursday. FAI Cup third round
Derry City v Waterford Utd Kick-off: 7.45
Jimmy McGeuogh returns to the Brandywell looking to put one over on his old club and pointing to City's recent league form as the basis for optimism.
"They haven't had a great start to the season," says McGeough "and like anybody else who ever played for the club I hope things improve - but only after we beat them."
United expect to have a full squad for the first time this season although Kelvin Flanagan has been suffering from a hamstring strain and will have to pass a fitness test.
City may well be unchanged from the weekend, as Liam Coyle (Achilles) and Tommy McCallion (ankle) remain doubtful.
Proposed replay date: Monday, August 19th at 7.30. Betting: Home: 1/2, Draw: 5/2, Away: 5/1. Referee: P McKeon (Dublin).
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