Derry City manager Declan Devine up beat despite missing out on Dundalk's Georgie Kelly

Kelly, who came through the youth ranks at Derry, held talks with the Brandywell men but opted, like Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe, to make the switch elsewhere in the League of Ireland.

Despite this Devine says there’s no ‘doom or gloom' around the club adding everyone is fully focused on Friday’s encounter against Sligo Rovers.

“There have been a couple of zingers thrown about all week,” stated Devine.

“It has been obvious that we did a lot of work in terms of trying to bring Junior to the club. The board have been very positive with the budget they have given us but we still have to work within a wage structure and can only offer players what we can offer them. If other clubs come in and throw money that we aren’t capable of matching, that’s fine, that’s up to those clubs but, yeah, we missed out on a target in Junior.

“We spoke to Georgie (Kelly) but the boy’s preference is to stay in and around the greater Dublin area. He has a close working relationship with Stephen O’Donnell (St Pat's manager) and (Robbie) Benson, having roomed and lived with them at Dundalk, so I don’t think there was ever really a possibility Georgie was coming to Derry City.

“The hype and the madness which has been going on over the last couple of days, Junior was speaking to us on a regular basis and decided to go to Sligo for whatever reason so people have to use their own common sense on that.

“Georgie was one I really didn’t think was ever going to be a goer but as much as the two boys have wanted to go elsewhere, there’s no doom and gloom.”

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