Derry City injury latest: Colm Whelan out for season as Patrick McEleney and Will Patching ruled out for Bohemians visit

The City boss confirmed the expected news that striker Colm Whelan's knee injury will rule him out for the remainder of his first season at Brandywell, a scenario which has compounded an horrendous 10 days for the Candy Stripes.

Exploratory surgery determined the worst case scenario for the Ireland U21 international who made such a positive impact upon his return from an ACL injury with a debut goal against Cork City and another on his Brandywell bow against St Pat's before getting is studs stuck in the pitch late in the 2-0 loss to Shamrock Rovers on Foyleside on May 1st.

“Collie will miss the remainder of the season,” he confirmed. “It’s devastating for him.”

Higgins has been unable to field his best eleven since the start of the season due to a disastrous spate of injuries to key players and with McEleney and Will Patching (knee) both nursing long-term problems, the break will come at a good time for the City manager.

Michael Duffy (ankle), Cameron Dummigan, who pulled up with a recurrence of his hamstring injury in the 4-1 loss to St Pat's on Monday night, and Mark Connnolly (knock) will be given until the last possible moment before a decision is made on whether they will feature against the Gypsies on Friday.

The news Duffy and Dummigan’s respective injuries weren’t as bad as first thought, provided some light relief for Higgins who is desperate to end the first half of the season on a positive note.

The Limavady man, however, admits the loss of his skipper, who was distraught leaving the pitch at the start of the second half in Richmond Park, is a tough one to take having seemingly been well on the road to recovery after visiting a specialist in London recently.

"Patrick has had an ongoing Achilles issue and it flares up and settles and then flares up but it was a bad flare up on Monday," explained Higgins. "It felt okay going into the game and then it flared up at half-time and he couldn't get himself going after half-time. It's unlikely that he will feature (against Bohs).

"We've been working away at it trying to get it fixed and he felt okay coming into the game but there's an issue there that we have to get right because it's one step forward, two steps back for him."

It's been a particularly frustrating and 'hurtful' time for the influential McEleney who is understandably upset that he 'can't contribute to the team,'' added Higgins. "He's so committed to the club. He' s so committed to wanting to bring success to the club and it hurts him and it should hurt everybody but him in particular.

"He was a season ticket holder with Derry as a kid. Went home and away to a lot of matches and this club means the world to him and it's probably devastating that he can't contribute to the team. They want to have an impact on the club and when they're on the sidelines it's difficult to do that. We'll just wait and see how it settles and what the next steps are. We're definitely a better team when he's around."

He'll be keeping his fingers firmly crossed in the hope Duffy, one of Derry's main attacking threats, and the experienced Dummigan, get the green light for Friday.

"Michael took a bad knock in the first half and couldn't get himself going so we took him off at half-time. Dummigan took a knock as well so we have to leave it as late as possible to make a call on those two and Mark Connolly also who picked up a knock."

The loss of Patching for the next few weeks doesn't help matters and it's understood the Englishman has seen a specialist about his tendonitis issue.

"Will's tendonitis flared up in his knee again so Will will miss the next few weeks," he confirmed. Despite the unfortunate injury pile-up, Higgins said he's not prepared to hide behind his team’s injury problems or use it as an excuse for last Monday's 'gut-wrenching' hammering at the hands of rivals St Pat's.

"I'm not going to make excuses. It's disappointing when a lot of your key personnel have to come off the pitch injured. You can say that and hide behind that but we have enough good players here at the club to put on a better showing than that.

“We will still have a team that's good enough on the pitch to win the game on Friday night. Is it ideal? No but we accept where we're at and let's go and try win this game on Friday."

His team will need a marked improvement from Monday night’s debacle where they shipped four avoidable goals and it could’ve been worse had Eoin Doyle filled his boots in the first half.

It was the fifth defeat of the season so far after 20 games and considering they lost just six the entire campaign in 2022, does it leave much wriggle room in the second part of the year?

"It' s a different season,” countered Higgins. “More teams are dropping more points. Five defeats isn't good enough and I won't stand here and tell you any different, I take full responsibility. I'm in charge of the team. As a group we all take responsibility.

"We had travelling fans coming down to Dublin in good numbers on a Monday. People probably taking a day off work to come down and we did them a disservice. We apologise to them. I'm gutted for them that they had to come down and witness that type of performance.”READ MORE: Derry City suffer biggest defeat under Ruaidhri Higgins in a night to forget in Inchicore