St Patrick's Athletic will be aiming to remain in the top three positions of the Irish Premier Division table by beating Shelbourne on Friday.

The visitors, meanwhile, would move two points behind their opponents with a game in hand should they secure a victory.

Match preview

After putting together an impressive run of four successive wins to move within four points of league leaders Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick's suffered a disappointing defeat last time out to Drogheda United.

Garrett Kelleher's side appeared set to return home with a point against their relegation-threatened opponents, but Darragh Markey's injury-time winner helped his side move out of the relegation zone.

While St Patrick's should not be too downbeat considering the form that they had displayed prior to their surprising defeat two weeks ago, their prospects of overhauling the reigning champions at the Irish Premier Division's summit appear unlikely.

Shamrock will be a very tough proposition to shift from their position with a six-point lead ahead of second-placed Derry City, but with 15 games of the season remaining, another winning streak could easily close the gap across the coming weeks.

Shelbourne, meanwhile, are making decent progress under the tutelage of former Chelsea winger Damien Duff, who guided the Auld Reds to a seventh-placed finish in his first season in charge last time out.

With an eight-point cushion ahead of Drogheda in seventh spot, Shelbourne clearly have no realistic concerns regarding relegation, meaning that they can focus on moving upwards in the table between now and the end of the campaign.

Duff's side's 3-2 victory against Drogheda has been their only triumph across their last five games, but just one defeat in their last 13 league matches demonstrates how tough they have become to beat under the 100-capped Irish international's management.

Indeed, no team in the division has conceded fewer goals than their tally of 14, but only rock-bottom UCD have scored fewer. As such, they will be hoping to cut loose on Friday, even if another draw would not represent a bad result for them whatsoever.

Team News

St Patrick's will remain without Tom Grivosti due to a long-term ACL injury, while Joe Redmond is unlikely to recover from a hamstring issue in time to feature.

Former Bolton Wanderers striker Eoin Doyle could return to the hosts' starting XI after surprisingly being dropped for the defeat to Drogheda last time out.

Shelbourne, meanwhile, may name the same starting XI that earned a 1-1 draw at home against Sligo Rovers in their last league outing.

That means Matty Smith should lead the line once again after scoring the opener in that game, with Duff hoping for his side to hold onto all three points should they find themselves in a similar position in Dublin on Friday.

St Patrick's Athletic possible starting lineup:
Lyness; Curtis, Lewis, McGrath, Breslin; Forrester, Lennon, Murphy; Carty, Doyle, McCormack

Shelbourne possible starting lineup:
Kearns; Quinn, Molloy, Griffin, Wilson; Farrell, Coyle, Lunney, Caffrey; Smith, Boyd

We say: St Patrick's Athletic 1-0 Shelbourne

St Patrick's had been on a superb run prior to their surprising defeat to Drogheda last time out, and we can envisage them returning to winning ways on Friday.

Shelbourne are surely due a loss despite being incredibly tough to beat in recent months under Duff, who has made them a defensively astute side without the goals at the other end to make them a perfectly-balanced outfit.

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