Nigel Si­mon

Ta­ble-top­pers Cen­tral FC will be keen to make a state­ment by grab­bing all three points when it comes up against de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion in a top-of-ta­ble Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League clash tonight.

The en­counter dubbed the "Cou­va Der­by" kicks of at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va from 8 pm and will be pre­ced­ed by a meet­ing be­tween North East Stars and Pt Fortin Civic two hours ear­li­er.

The Zo­ran Vranes-coached Cen­tral FC leads the stand­ings with 20 points from nine match­es, three ahead of W Con­nec­tion which has a match in hand fol­lowed by De­fence Force with 17, Stars (14) and Pt Fortin and Cale­do­nia, both with 11.

And in the Jan­u­ary trans­fer win­dow, Vranes bol­stered his team with the sign­ings of Ja­maican Up­ston Ed­wards and T&T de­fend­ers Uri­ah Bentick and Kevon Vil­laroel, as well as the re­turn­ing to the club of last sea­son's top per­form­ers Willis Plaza, Run­dell Win­ches­ter, Ja­mal Jack, El­ton John and Ghan­ian Michael Yaw Darko, the lat­ter from a loan stint at Cunu­pia FC to an al­ready po­tent squad in­clu­sive of Mar­vin Oliv­er, Ataulla Guer­ra, Ja­son Mar­cano, Sean de Sil­va, goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams, and Le­ston Paul.

In the two match­es since league play re­sumed af­ter the Christ­mas break, Cen­tral FC has rat­tled off a 3-1 win over Pt Fortin Civic fol­lowed by an equal­ly im­pres­sive 4-1 spank­ing of St Ann's Rangers week ago and will be in top form for tonight's en­counter, the third be­tween the two clubs so far this sea­son.

How­ev­er, it is W Con­nec­tion which is ex­pect­ed to start the match in high­er spir­its hav­ing won their first meet­ing, 1-0 to re­tain the Dig­i­cel Char­i­ty Shield on Sep­tem­ber 20 be­fore both teams bat­tled to a 1-1 on Oc­to­ber 28 in Pro League round one play a month lat­er.

The "Savonet­ta Boys" will al­so be out to make up for the dis­ap­point­ment of los­ing out on the in­au­gur­al Rawle Fletch­er Tro­phy and $35,000 as win­ners of round one of the Pro League on goal-dif­fer­ence to its ri­val. Speak­ing ahead of the match, W Con­nec­tion tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor/coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er made it clear his team's ob­jec­tive is to re­tain the cham­pi­onship by do­ing every­thing legal­ly pos­si­ble to do so.

"We are hap­py with the po­si­tion we are at the mo­ment. We have a top of the ta­ble match com­ing up and the ob­jec­tive is to try and win the game, stat­ed Charles-Fevri­er who led the club to five ti­tles: Pro League, T&TFA FA Tro­phy, Toy­ota Clas­sic, Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl and Dig­i­cel Char­i­ty Shield last sea­son

"Both teams know each oth­er very well. Cen­tral are a good team, ca­pa­ble of scor­ing goals, so we are prepar­ing for a very dif­fi­cult game.

"But we are very con­fi­dent in our team and con­fi­dent that we can de­fend our cham­pi­onship."

W Con­nec­tion used the trans­fer win­dow to make avail­able for se­lec­tion, Colom­bians Stiv­en Lopez Con­cha and Chris­t­ian Ro­driguez, St Lu­cian Shir­vone Ma­lik St Prix, and na­tion­al mid­field­er Shah­don Win­ches­ter, who com­plet­ed his sec­ond year stint at Fin­land top-flight club FF Jaro last year, and is avail­able on loan for a few match­es.

With re­spect to the sign­ings the W Con­nec­tion coach said, "It's just that we are try­ing to strength­en our squad be­cause of all the com­pe­ti­tions we still have to com­pete in."

"We ob­vi­ous­ly want to have a chance in every com­pe­ti­tion so it is nec­es­sary to have a squad with the re­quired num­ber of play­ers to car­ry us through the sea­son."

For tonight's match, the W Con­nec­tion boss is ex­pect­ed to have na­tion­al Un­der-20 play­ers Shan­non Gomez, Mar­tieon Wat­son, Mau­rice Ford, Aikim An­drews, Akeem Gar­cia and Jabari Mitchell, avail­able af­ter they re­turned from Ja­maica yes­ter­day fol­low­ing T&T's ex­it from the Con­ca­caf Un­der-20

Cham­pi­onship.

But af­ter play­ing five match­es in just over a week, Charles-Fevri­er may opt to give them the day off and stick to the core of play­ers that have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the re­cent 1-1 draw with San Juan Jabloteh and 3-0 blank­ing of Cale­do­nia AIA.

Both Stars and Pt Fortin Civic en­ter their match-up with 2-1-1 records in their last four match­es.

How­ev­er, while the San­gre Grande-based Stars were edged out 1-0 by De­fence Force, Pt Fortin led by a hat-trick from Mar­cus Joseph steam­rolled Cale­do­nia 6-2 and will be out to avenge a round 3-1 loss.

To­mor­row, at the same venue, cel­lar-placed St Ann's Rangers play Jabloteh from 4pm fol­lowed by Po­lice and De­fence Force at 6 pm.

To­day's Dig­i­cel Pro League match­es

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

North East Stars vs Pt Fortin Civic, 6 pm

Cen­tral FC vs W Con­nec­tion, 8 pm

Sun­day:

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

St Ann's Rangers vs San Juan Jabloteh, 4 pm

Po­lice vs De­fence Force, 6 pm

stand­ings?

Cur­rent Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League

Teams P W D L F A Pts

Cen­tral FC 9 6 2 1 27 8 20

W Con­nec­tion 8 5 2 1 20 5 17

De­fence Force 9 5 1 3 15 13 16

North East Stars 9 4 2 3 8 6 14

Pt Fortin Civic 9 3 2 4 18 17 11

Cale­do­nia 9 3 2 4 15 19 11

Jabloteh 9 2 4 3 9 15 10

Po­lice 9 2 4 3 12 19 10

Rangers 9 0 1 8 7 28 1?