Cork City v Derry City: Home advantage helps chance of an FAI Cup upset at Turner's Cross

FRIDAY: Sports Direct FAI Cup: Cork City v Derry City, Turner's Cross, 7.45pm.

Cork City have nothing to fear when they take on Derry. The players should be approaching this game full of belief. 

Yes, Derry are in a division above them, currently, the second-best team in the country if the league table is what teams are judged by. But they are no world-beaters, and I do think they will be genuinely worried about an upset at Turner's Cross. 

Their away record recently has been poor, with the Candstripes winning just one of their last five games away from the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium. 

And they won’t fancy the long trip down to Cork. 

Obviously they do have quality in their team and it would be naive of City to ignore it, City should have a go off of Derry.

I wouldn’t be critical of City if they did set up to stop Derry from playing and tried to nick a goal on the counter-attack or from a set-play but wouldn’t it just be refreshing to see City just go after Derry from the first whistle.

Tim Clancy has frequently spoken about how difficult opposition teams make it for his side playing with a low-block against City. The City boss speaks about the opposition's tactics in a mannerly way, despite opponents being very negative. 

I’d like to think that having played against a low-block all year that Clancy has seen that it rarely brings success because teams do break through it, as his team have for most of the season. So hopefully he won’t be instructing his players to allow Derry to have possession at the back and only really engage with them when they enter City’s half. 

I think if the Rebel Army were to be very aggressive and take the game to Derry, and lose, even by a heavy scoreline, fans would accept that because they want to see their side go toe-to-toe with the elite teams in the country. They want to leave Turner's Cross on Friday knowing whether these players are good enough to compete next season or will a big turnover of the squad be needed during the off-season.

Playing a defensive style and just sitting off Derry wouldn’t tell much because any team can set up to contain a team for the majority of the game before usually being defeated or in rare occasions getting a win.

Part of me thinks that City will either go 4-4-2 or 3-5-2 for the game, changing from their usual 4-3-3, to get both Keating and Maguire in the side. The argument could be made that either Keating or Maguire could play on the wing and the other play through the middle so there is no need to alter the system.

Maguire and Keating are most effective through the middle, so I don’t think either should be asked to ‘do a job’ on the wing. 

4-4-2 might be better, because at the moment if they were to play 3-5-2, I think they would be short at the back because of injuries. With 4-4-2 there isn’t a big difference from how they usually play, it’s just that either Keating or Maguire would have to make sure that one of them drops in on the opposition’s deep midfielder without the ball, and in possession, one needs to come short while the other stays high.

I liked what I saw of Maguire last week. He looked very sharp, although it’s easy to look sharp in the last 15 minutes of a game against tired defenders but he definitely brought some energy to the team. I think if he is fit enough to start, psychologically Derry players will be more worried, and it gives City a better chance of causing an upset.