It was pretty much business as usual for Bohemians manager Roddy Collins yesterday as he entertained the Scottish press corps ahead of this evening's UEFA Cup qualifying round second leg at Tolka Park.
The former Dundalk striker took time out to apologise to his opposite number Ebbe Skovdahl for any offence his remarks ahead of the game in Scotland a couple of weeks ago might have caused. He had said then that the Dane was too old for the job. But he went on to make it clear yesterday that he feels that the Aberdeen coach's job is on the line tonight.
"The players are playing for their manager's job and if he goes then some of them will too, so there is plenty for them to play for," he said ahead of the second leg of a tie which the Dublin club currently leads 2-1.
Bohemians should be at full strength for the game with Shaun Maher and Trevor Molloy both insisting that they have recovered from knee and hamstring problems. Teenager Gary O'Reilly might come in if Molloy, who trained yesterday, is ruled out.
"We're expecting a full house and we'll want to be remembered as having a crack at it," said an upbeat Collins, who insisted that the pressure would once again be on the visitors, whose defeat two weeks ago caused consternation in Scottish football circles.
Skovdahl has considerable selection problems. Arild Stavrum is set to join leading striker Eoin Jess as well as Derek Young in the stands for tonight's game after picking up a back injury in the weekend's 2-0 defeat by Hibernian.
Derek Whyte and Paul Bernard return, however, giving a welcome boost to a coach whose team on Saturday had an average age of just 22.
Meanwhile, Cork City manager Derek Mountfield is unlikely to name his starting line-up for this evening's UEFA Cup qualifying round second leg against Lausanne Sport until this afternoon. Lausanne lead 10 from the first leg.
Mountfield must make a final decision on the fitness of Pat Morley today.
"He's one factor," said Mountfield, "but there are a couple of other things I want to have a think about. I have one or two teams written out on a piece of paper and I'll probably take the opportunity to have another look at everybody in training before deciding on which one to go with."
While Noel Hartigan is definitely out of today's game (kick-off 6.0) with a hamstring problem there is a fair bit of optimism that Morley can shake off a similar problem in time to play. Having returned to training over the past couple of nights, Stephen Napier is definitely fit to start.
"By the time the game comes around I hope to have close to a full panel to choose from and if I have then I'd be hopeful that we can cause them a few problems.
"In the first leg I think we surprised them with our workrate, determination and, particularly, our fitness. On the ball they were technically superior to us, I don't think there'd be any argument about that, but I think we can get at them again in the second leg - we certainly don't see the tie as being beyond us."
With the capacity at Turner's Cross capped at 6,500 for the all-seated game, Cork City are hoping for a full house for the visit of a team that have been performing well in their domestic league. Their most recent win, 2-1 away to FC Aarau at the weekend made it five wins in seven outings. Lausanne are in second place in the league, narrowly behind leaders Lugano.
But there are problems to cope with up front with Argentinean striker Javier Mazzoni out after failing to recover from a stomach muscle tear picked up in the Swiss team's home leg against Cork. His obvious replacement, recent arrival Pape Thiaw who has scored in each of the club's last two games, is not eligible and so Christophe Simon with probably partner joint topscorer Marcin Kuzba in attack.
The enforced changes are a setback to coach Pierre-Andre Schrumann, but shortly after arriving in Cork yesterday he said that he expected his side to show the character required to turn the pressure of defending a narrow lead in a tight stadium to their advantage.
