Former Celt Willie McStay takes Ujpest Dozsa to face third bottom Haladas this afternoon facing the toughest times of his management career.
Four defeats out of five since the end of the winter break, and a first leg defeat in the semi finals of the Magya Cup, have saw Ujpest slip out of contention for the title and battling for a European spot.
While their rivals strengthened their squads during the three month winter break hoping to follow Debrecen into the Champions League Ujpest had to make to do attempting to hold on to their players.
A run of injuries and suspensions has had a major impact on McStay’s options.
Captain Peter Kovac’s goals helped drive the club up the table in the first part of the season but McStay is looking for the rest of his side to roll up their sleaves and grind out some wins before the return leg of their Magyar Cup semi-final away to ZTE on April 14.
He said: “Things have been tough since the season resumed, there has been a few factors but the only way to resolve things is to work harder on the park.
“We’ve got a small group of players and we’ve asked a lot of them but to be successful they have to push themselves further.
“There hasn’t been much luck around recently but you have to keep working hard and believing in yourselves to turn things round.
“Every mistake seems to be getting punished but we have to be sharper in front of goal and tighter at the back, we’ve had chances to win matches but haven’t been decisive enough.
“Against Haladas we need 100% concentration and determination, we need to fight for everything.
“They have some good attacking options but we need to win to pick things up again for the league and cup.”
All the best Willie..hope you and the team come good…you deserve it.
Unfortunately Ujpest lost 1-0 today with defender Zoltan Pollak sent off after 31 minutes.