Derry City boss Ruaidhri Higgins wants to end "difficult week" with victory over Shelbourne

Criticism has spilled over into personal abuse in a few online incidents following the 1-0 defeat in Richmond Park but Higgins says he doesn't let it effect him as he plots a winning end to their home league fixtures against Shelbourne and a second FAI Cup victory in three seasons.

"I'll talk about going forward after the cup final," said the City boss at Wednesday's traditional midweek press conference, "It's such fine margins, really fine margins. I'm not going to go over it but you look at certain games and, as I said, we'll talk about that at the end of the season.

“In terms of the abuse, I'm past that stage. I don't take it personally, I'm past that stage. I'm focused on what we're doing here between now and the end of the season and trying to finish the season on a real high.

"We can obviously analyse and reflect on the season because there's plenty of time to do that whenever the final whistle goes in the Aviva.”

Higgins and his management team have been trying to pick the players up this week in training and said they were fully focused on ending their league campaign with what would be a 10th home win in 18 matches, alongside six draws and two defeats.

“We had our goal right the way through the season and it was to try and win the league and we haven't been successful at that," added Higgins "It's obviously extremely disappointing but we have a job on our hands now to finish in the top three.

“When you get into the second last game with a chance of winning the league and then you have a job to finish in the top three, it just shows you the nature of it. It's been a mad year, a rollercoaster type year, but we have to finish the season strong at home and then get ourselves prepared for the following week.

“We've tried to make training this week as bright as possible, as lively as possible and enjoyable as possible. Obviously, there's a big prize still available in the not too distant future so I think that's enough to keep anyone going.

"We’re professionals, we want to get a result for this football club regardless of who else is involved. We finished the season with a good win last year against St. Pat’s and we want to do the same again this year.”

Duncan Idehen was one of the few bright spots from last week's game in Richmond Park with the big defender likely to be handed his home debut tonight as Higgins manages an extensive injury list.

“He was excellent, he was really good," said Higgins of the centre-half, "He's got brilliant athletic attributes. He's left sided so he gives you good balance and he was excellent in the game. He's a young lad as well and young in terms of men's football so there's loads of potential, loads to work with but it's important that we look after him and feed him in in the right way.

"Obviously I have whatever I have in my head so we'll have a look at it and see where we go because, as I said, we want to win this game," he added of more potential changes to his starting 11, "We want to try and get ourselves into that European position if we can so it's important that we try and get a good result here.”