Boss happy to be on the road as home isn’t sweet

In their last two league outings at Drumahoe, ’Stute’s attack minded players have been hustled and harried throughout the 90 minutes and Kee believes playing away from home may help his side.

“The last couple of games at home teams have sat in against us, but the onus will be on Knockbreda, because they are the home team on Saturday,” stated Kee.

“With them being at home, I expect them to come at us and they have a very good pitch. I was up there a couple of weeks ago watching a school boy international and the pitch is in fantastic order, so that should suit us.

“Hopefully Knockbreda’s style will suit us, because they try to play.”

Aaron Walsh is likely to be back in the squad as the midfielder returns from suspension, while Sean Roddy is likely to return to training in the coming weeks as he steps up his recovery from his knee problem, which he picked up during pre-season.

Kee also admitted that this week’s training will not be as intense, as he looks for his players to recover from last week’s exertions where they played three games in seven days.

Sandwiched in between their two league matches was a North West Senior Cup Final defeat to Newbuildings United, which had extra-time and penalties.

“If I’m to be honest we are trying to get a wee bit of work done this week, because we have had so many games we have had to temper training on a Thursday night,” he added.

“However in saying all that we got a good session on Monday and we are hoping to get another good session on Thursday in preparation for the Knockbreda game, but we are mindful of the injuries which we have got.

“In fairness we are carrying one or two boys, so hopefully we can see them through and get them mended for Saturday.”

The Waterside man is keeping his fingers crossed that Walsh to have learned from his suspension and more importantly he returns to his best.

“Aaron is a big player for us, but by his own admission his form hasn’t been great,” conceded Kee.

“He has let his high standards slip, teams are now starting to target him, we saw that on Tuesday night in the North West Senior Cup Final, he got a bit emotionally involved in the game and he ended up reacting to a bit of provocation, but he should know better.

“He’s a player that is key to us, he had a good season last season, winning Player of the Year and Players Player of the Year, but he has to learn to deal with that responsibility, particularly if he wants to play at a higher level.

“It’s a big ask for him, but hopefully he’s going to learn from his mistake, come back and make a contribution and deal with the pressure which happens when you are a top player.”