Brown is out with a broken hand, but he is hoping to back in contention next week, while Hedderman is still troubled with a thigh injury.

“Last Friday's game was poor from the first minute to the 90th. It was demoralising and the goals we conceded again were terrible," said boss Gareth Cronin.

"As manager, I have to take full responsibility. I can't really explain how we could go out and be as poor as we were but that's the way it turned out."

He added: "I think we have to go back to basics and adopt a simple approach to our football. We all have to work lot harder and we have to stop giving away goals from set pieces.

"The players were extremely disappointed with themselves after last week. A lot of soul searching has been done, but now the mood is upbeat and there is a realisation that we need to turn this round as quick as possible. Everyone is hell bent on performing to the best of our ability this weekend."

Out-of-sorts City desperately need a win to push them back up the table - they currently lie eighth on six points.

"I think we have the players to turn it around," said boss Pat Fenlon.

"It’s whether we as a group want to turn it around or we want to just sit around and mope about it and cry about it and think everybody is on our back."

City have a full squad to choose from but Fenlon may again change the starting line-up as he looks to gain full points from a game they should win.