Kee looks to remain in the Championship shake up

The Drumahoe club suffered a disappointing 4-3 defeat at in-form Larne and that lost coupled by other results means they drop down into fourth spot, four points behind new Championship One leaders Bangor.

The Drumahoe club currently sit ten points ahead of Richard Clarke’s side but Kee is expecting a tough encounter.

In fact when the sides last met in October, despite taking the lead thanks to Darren McCauley’s goal the home side secured a share of the spoils thanks to Mark Leckey’s equailser, also in that game ’Stute defender Stephen O’Donnell was sent-off.

“The last two or three times we have played them they have definitely given us a good game and it will be exactly the same,” stated Kee.

“Every game now takes extra significant because we are in the second half of the season.

“To be honest it doesn’t matter were we are playing, home or away, we want to try and win the games, but yeah your winning your home games is essential.

“For me the table will probably start to take it’s shape around January time, so we need to make sure through the couple of league games we have got that we are maximum our points in the league.

“We have to win league matches, as we don’t have many because we have a few cup competitions games in January.”

In recent weeks the likes of Bangor, Carrick Rangers and Knockbreda have all caught up with both ’Stute and leaders Dundela, in fact the Seasiders have leapfrogged both Kee’s side and Dundela to move into pole position in the table.

“Carrick have hit a good vein in form and Gary Haveron has come in and made an impact. They seem to be playing with a freshness and a desire. Bangor are also in a good vein of form and have move in to the top of the league and credit to them.

“But we have to just worry about we have to do, we are still in the shake and if you had have asked me at the start of the season would I have liked to be in our position, then I would have said yes.

“Obviously there’s games we probably should have got maximum points from but we didn’t and we obviously had a disappointing exit from the Irish Cup and we’ll remind the players about that from time to time.

“However at the same time we want to make sure that we are focused and keep the confidence levels high and that’s what we’ll be trying to do in every game now.”

After this weekend’s match the January transfer window opens and like any manager Kee will be looking to strengthen his squad, but he won’t be rushing into bringing in any new additions.

“We are going to have to see what happens,” he added.

“There has been players on the radar but we have to make sure that they are right for us first but at the minute we are quite happy with the squad that we have got.

“However we did speak that we might need to strengthen in certain areas, so we’ll have to look at that now after the Dergview game.”

Kee’s side, who trained on Boxing Day ahead of the Dergview game, will be without goalscoring centre-back Matthew Crossan after he was sent-off at Larne on Saturday.

However Michael McCrudden returns from suspension but fellow midfielder Aaron Walsh sits out for one last time as his six match ban comes to an end.