DERRY CITY: McDermott ruled out for Rovers

The 19-year-old picked up a quad injury in Sunday’s Ulster Senior League win over Cockhill Celtic and boss Kenny Shiels says he will definitely miss the club’s double header against Shamrock Rovers on Friday and Dundalk next Monday night.

The talented Northern Ireland U21 international has had a stop-start pre-season campaign after injuring his hip flexor.

“Conor will miss the Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk games and could possibly be out for a few weeks,” stated Shiels.

“It’s a big blow and as he also missed a bit of pre-season, he’s bitterly disappointed.

“We have five games in the space of 15 days and while I’m not a physio there’s a chance he may miss all of those matches.”

At the minute the majority of Derry’s fit defenders are all left footed - Dean Jarvis, Aaron Barry, Alon Netzer and Sam Todd - while Ryan McBride and Scott Whiteside are the only right footed defenders available. With this in mind Shiels concedes he may have to change his formation for this Friday night’s clash at Rovers. Having played with three defenders at the back during pre-season, that system could well be adopted.

“Scott could play right-back, but he’s more of a centre-back and I want to be fair to him, but we’ll wait and work on a few things this week,” he added.

On the plus side, injured duo Ben Doherty and Rory Patterson are making good progress.

“Both Ben and Rory are doing well and they might start jogging this Wednesday, but we’ll wait and see,” he added.

The numbers drawn in this week’s Derry City lotto, sponsored by Kitcheneque were 4, 8, 22 and 23.

The Jackpot was not won and now stands at £3,100.