Galway United welcome in-form league leaders Shelbourne to Dyke Road

Galway United’s respite last weekend from a run of defeats will be severely tested tonight when they welcome league leaders, Shelbourne, to Eamonn Deacy Park (7.45pm).

With the west basking in sunshine for the past number of weeks, the Galway Arts Festival just over a week away, and the Galway Races having been launched this week, there is a real feelgood factor around the City of the Tribes right now, but that hasn’t been the case up the Dyke Road.

A season which was flagged as being one of building for Galway United has been even more testing than many envisaged. The tone was set early too – on the opening day of the season, United led 2-0 at home to Shelbourne with 16 minutes remaining, only to concede three goals before the final whistle to suffer a heartbreaking defeat.

Shels were also winners when the two sides met in Tolka Park at the end of April in a game to forget for United, losing 3-0 and having both Stephen Walsh and Dara Costelloe sent-off.

United bounced back from that loss with back-to-back wins over Wexford and Longford Town, but they haven’t won in the seven games since, picking up a paltry 2 points from a possible 21.

The most recent of those came in a 1-1 draw with Athlone Town last Friday night, while Shelbourne were recording a seventh consecutive win, Ciaran Kilduff’s 38th minute goal enough to seal a 2-1 win for The Reds.

While that is an impressive run, all seven wins have been by a single goal, so they haven’t been putting sides to the sword, but United manager, Alan Murphy, has admitted that his side needs to improve on last Friday’s display if they are to take anything from tonight’s game.

“The Athlone Town game was very open, there were chances given up at both ends, and we know that will not be good enough against Shelbourne.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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