Tom Grivosti out to make St Patrick's Athletic history with clean sheet record and Euro progress on the line

The Irish Sun

3 days ago

TOM GRIVOSTI is hoping to rewrite the history books tomorrow night after ensuring it was a possibility last week.
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St Pat's hold a narrow lead over Nomme Kalju in the Conference League
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Tom Grivosti of St Patrick's Athletic is hoping for another shut out and club history
The visitors did not offer much at Richmond Park with Grivosti getting his body in the way to ensure their one genuine chance, which fell to Krijstan Kask, did not result in a goal.
If they can shut out the Estonians in the return leg they will not only progress to the third qualifying round of the Conference League, where
As a defender Grivosti, is pleased with how
He said: 'It's brilliant. Last year in Europe we had good clean sheets but we were known for how many goals we were scoring.
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"Now to equal the club record for clean sheets is an added bonus.
"If we can do it again on Thursday it will be a great achievement for the whole squad, everyone in the squad played a part in that over the six games.'
On his timely intervention in Inchicore, he said: 'We restricted them to a few chances and probably that was the main chance that they had in the game, a second phase off a corner, a little knockdown.
'So yeah, it was a good block, it's what I'm there to do.'
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The Scouser was a target for champions Shelbourne in the off-season but opted to sign a new contract.
Fresh competition arrived in the form of Seán Hoare from Shamrock Rovers and the pair have almost been involved in a job share with club captain Joe Redmond in defence.
Mike Maignan shows off his goalkeeping skills at AC Milan training
Redmond has started all 25 league games with Hoare and Grivosti each making 12 starts and coming on in a further three.
But the ex-Bolton Wanderers and Ross County centre-back — who started all six games in Europe last season as well as the three to date this term — has no regrets about his decision.
He said: 'I was obviously out of contract at the end of the season, so there were obviously a few bits, but I love it at Pat's. I kind of knew I wanted to stay here.
"When you're wanting to challenge, you're going to need the squad.
'I've played a lot of football this year and I feel like I'm playing well now and hopefully keep that going for the rest of the season.
'When you get your place in the team, you know there's lads chomping at the bit trying to get in, so you just keep trying to play well and keep your place in the team.'
Although St Pat's were defensively solid against Kalju, they did struggle to break them down with the only goal arriving in stoppage time from Chris Forrester — despite their opponents being down to nine men for the last 20 minutes.
But the 26-year-old is expecting an improved display from them second time around.
DIFFERENT TEST
He said: 'I'm expecting a different game.
'They probably felt like they didn't play well. We watched them and they do look like a good team.
'We know — we've been in this position before where we've won the home leg and we have to go away — that you're going to be under pressure.
'The teams normally start quite quickly when they're at home and stuff like that, so we're expecting them to have a good go.
'But we've got fast players so that if teams do come on to us, we can play counter-attacking football and stuff like that.'