The run-in to the end of the season is very much here for Waterford FC who have an away trip to basement side Longford Town tomorrow.
The relegated side welcome the Blues to Bishopsgate on Saturday evening where Marc Bircham's team will have a singular goal in mind ahead of kick-off. Nothing less than the maximum points will suffice in their battle to avoid a relegation play off.
Their opponents have known their fate some weeks now, but it doesn't reduce the risk around the game. "De Town" have only won two league games this year, beating Dundalk and Derry City, but Phoenix Patterson, Marc Bircham and the rest of the Waterford FC team will not be approaching this clash as anything other than a banana skin which could easily upend their drive to stay alive in the Premier Division next year.
The in-form striker Patterson has proved to be crucial in the team's success in recent weeks, and while he hasn't scored since the 4-1 thumping of Finn Harps at the RSC, he had gone five games scoring in each appearance prior. Speaking to WLR Sport this week, he's excited to get these last two efforts underway.
Yeah, we're looking forward to it; we're confident. Huge last two games. We're working hard in training to make sure that we're getting everything right and preparing to make sure that we can put in a good performance and hopefully get the three points which sets it sets us up nicely for the last game of the season against St. Pat's at home.
Last weekend, Shamrock Rovers came to town and left the Blues boss seething at full time. Bircham was less than pleased with his team's performance, with two sloppy set piece's going between the sticks the cause of his frustrations. Comments to WLR after the game left little in the way on uncertainty when he said that the players had "left the club down", but Patterson who played the full ninety was of a similar mindset to his manager by the time the final whistle blew.
We were very disappointed after the game not to come away with any points especially going 1-nil up and defending well, to concede two sloppy goals on set pieces was really disappointing. Hopefully, we can learn from this and then defend better in these situations in the last two games; because we know how important set pieces are - they can win you or lose your games. So hopefully in the next two games, we can do better in these situations.
With the danger of relegation play-off in the forefront of the player's minds, their focus will need to remain on the next task at hand. They need to see their way through a potentially season-ending visit to Longford and a team who have no strings attached to them for their final home game of the season. With the Blues still battling Finn Harps to get off the 40 point mark on the table, the High Wycombe native is hoping that the work that's gone in since Bircham came to the club will be enough to see them stay in the top division for 2022.
Of course we have high standards as a group because we know what we want to achieve. So the gaffer just told us after the game what he expects because we want to stay in this league. Like the playoff position from when he came in if we wanted to get that, I think maybe we only had to get two wins and a draw. Considering everything that we've done since then, we just want to make sure that we can just stay up automatically because we've worked so hard.
