Derry City relishing hunting down Shamrock Rovers as Ruaidhri Higgins clings on to title hopes

​The City boss was frustrated with his team's below-par performance and the contentious officiating in the team's 1-0 loss to Sligo Rovers last week but he's not one for dwelling on results as he prepares for the visit of UCD to Brandywell on Friday night.

It's a chance to redeem themselves and potentially reignite the title race with leaders Rovers hosting an in-form Shelbourne who have their eyes on European football.

Higgins' troops can ill afford to drop any more points but Rovers' shock stalemate with UCD last week has kept the door ajar for the Candy Stripes to rein in the league leaders with five games to go.

Five points separate the top two but there promises to be plenty more twists and turns with 15 points up for grabs and Higgins knows his players can't take their eye off the ball when the Students arrive on Foyleside.

"Nervousness?" responded Higgins when asked if the abject display in Sligo was down to nerves or a fear of making mistakes given the high stakes involved in every match during the run-in.

"Definitely not! That's certainly not a factor," he smiled. “We’ve shown that we can respond to a bad result already and we want to do the same again.

"I think when you're top there can be nerves because you can see people coming behind you but when you're in the chasing pack it's to be embraced and enjoyed.

"The players have been absolutely brilliant for a long period of time now and it's about getting back to that as quickly as we can and not dwelling on last week."

All was not lost after the loss at the Showgrounds given the result at the Belfield and Higgins believes his team is 'hanging in there' with St Pat's and Rovers all dropping points on another unpredictable night of League of Ireland action.

"You can look at it in a way where, right, we're still hanging in there," he said as he reflected on last week's results. "There's still a lot of football to be played. There's 15 points to play for.

"All we can look at is Friday night and trying to beat a side that's just come off a brilliant result against Rovers. Maybe we spoke too much about the remaining six fixtures last week rather than just the game that was in front of us and we ended up getting punished."

It was another missed opportunity for Higgins men and if it wasn't for referee Rob Harvey's refusal to award a blatant penalty when Cian Kavanagh was upended in the box by Sligo keeper Richard Brush Derry could well have closed the gap at the top to two points.

They didn't, however, and Higgins warned they must be ready to pounce on any further slip-ups by the leaders.

"Listen, we know we're capable of winning matches but we have to be really consistent and play at a high level to do that but we're capable of winning matches starting with the game on Friday.

"I don't think we need to kickstart anything really. We had a poor night last week, there's no getting away from that but if we can show the consistency in our performance levels we showed previous to that, then we can win on Friday night and that's all we're focussed on for now is Friday and getting three points on the board."

Derry have netted 13 goals past UCD in their opening three meetings this season but Higgins won't be taking Andy Myler's team lightly, particularly after that morale-boosting draw with the Hoops.

"We need to take our hurt and frustration out in the game," said Higgins. "To be fair the players have been fantastic for quite a while now and we're all hurting. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then it was back to work and preparing for this game.

"We know Friday is a really big game. UCD have just come off a brilliant result against Shamrock Rovers. And if you look at it, they've taken points off all the top teams this season so they're no mugs that's for sure.

"Rovers had a lot of the ball but didn’t really have loads of chances. UCD were really well set up. I'm sure they will be the exact same coming here. We're at home and we have to go and beat them, it's as simple as that.

"It's a game we need to win but they can't be dismissed either. If this league has proved anything this year, you see the spread of points around the league - I've never seen it before.

"I've been involved in the league since the summer of 2004 and I've never seen the League of Ireland so closely congested and the spread of points right throughout the league.

"There's not that many points between eighth and second. If you look at it in previous years there's a massive amount but it's become really competitive.

"UCD have taken points off Rovers, Shels, Dundalk, Bohemians. One thing it shows is you can't just think it's home to UCD, we just have to turn up. That's not the way it works and our players know that. We need to be really professional in how we go about it to try and get the three points."

Ronan Boyce misses out through suspension but Shane McEleney returns to the squad after serving his one match ban for his red card against Rovers. His brother Patrick is doubtful due to a flare-up of his Achilles issue while Mark Connolly is also struggling with an ankle injury.