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Derry City v Shelbourne, Brandywell, Sunday 1.45pm

A season defining game for both club tomorrow as City and Shels meet at the semi final stage of the FAI Ford Cup. A place in the showpiece event of the season on offer, with the promise of silverware and European football.

City steadied the ship mhttp://www.derrycityfc.net/wp-admin/post-new.phpidweek, when they defeated Dundalk 4-0 to end an alarming run of defeats in the League, which had seen any prospect of European football throught final League position disappear. Shelbourne are also marooned in midtable, several points behind City. However last season’s beaten finalists are only one game away from a return to Lansdowne Road and another Cup final.

The record between the sides this year is slightly in the favour of the visitors, as they have won twice, whereas City recorded a victory in Tolka in August. Both sides have been very disappointing at home this season, and therefore it may favour Shelbourne who have picked up 19 points of their 31 on the road this season. City have had their troubles at the Brandywell but will hoping that the victory during the week will break the Brandywell hoodoo.

City have a number of players returning from injury and the manager has publicly stated that he will adopt a “wait and see” approach to these players, giving them right until the last minute to prove their fitness. Barry Molloy and Stephen McLaughlin are two of the players who have missed recent weeks but both are expected to feature tomorrow.

Rory Patterson has continued to recover from his hamstring problem, but this game is likely to have come several weeks too early that hasn’t trained for several months. City also must plan without the services of Conor Murphy, who is cup-tied, having appeared for Monaghan earlier in the competition.

Kevin Deery and Patrick McEleney are full recovered and McEleney was one of those on the scoresheet during the week against Dundalk. Allied to impressive progress of Barry McNamee, Devine has plenty of option in mifield, which may be one of the key battlefields on the pitch.

Speaking ahead of the tie Devine said ” It is obviously the biggest game of our season, we would like to be the first Derry City team to go to the new Aviva Stadium and we are 90 minutes away from doing that,” he admitted.”We really need it to be honest, we want people to get behind the players and help us to get to the FAI Cup Final.”For us to achieve what we want, we need a full house and make the Brandywell a very difficult venue for Shelbourne and also make it a hostile atmosphere for them.”

“I feel that the team who defends best on the day will win the match.”The reality is they have scored two goals against us and won two matches and we have scored two goals against them and won the last game, so it has been very, very tight and there isn’t much between the sides.”If you don’t give anything away I think you’ll give yourself an opportunity to win the game and I think when it comes down to it on Sunday, the team that settles the best and gives a good account of themselves will win the tie.”

Shels have also used recent games to aid the fitness of a number of their injured players and this offers Alan Matthews a number of options, though he may start with a 4-5-1, with the ever dangerous Philip Hughes likely to lead the line for the visitors.

Historically the games have been very tight, we have met on 94 occasions, with both sides winning 33 and drawing 28 games. We have scored 100 times to Shels’ 93. We have kept 36 clean sheets to Shels 38. 50 players have scored for City against Shels, with Liam Coyle top scorer with 8.

City have only ever had one “home” cup semi final before, when they lost out to Waterford United, Dan Connor converting a penalty for the Blues.

A large crowd is expected for the game, ticketing information is available here.