Derry City to utilise loan market as Declan Devine looks to English and Scottish leagues

The Derry City boss enjoyed huge success with loan signings last season as Colchester United’s Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe finished as the league’s top scorer, while Sheffield United’s David Parkhouse netted 19 in all competitions.

Brighton’s Josh Kerr also played a key role during the opening part of the season and Devine is hoping the progression of those loan signings will convince top English clubs to continue to do business with the Candy Stripes.

Devine and members of his backroom team will travel across the UK in the coming weeks in search of another potential gem.

While he will no doubt be hoping for a competitive budget for building his squad, Devine, who knows full well the merits of the current loan market, believes it could prove extremely beneficial once again in 2020.

“I think one of the markets which was very good to us last year was the loan market with Junior, Josh Kerr and Parkhouse,” he said.

“And their clubs are now seeing the benefit of giving us their players and that’s something I think we’ll be tapping into again in terms of the loan market which is massive for us.

“We’ll be travelling throughout the UK in the next couple of weeks ourselves because we had great success with that last year with Parkhouse and Junior obviously.

“We also had Josh Kerr and people like that who had a big influence in the early part of the season.

“The recruitment had started way before the end of the season and that will continue until the end of the transfer window in January.

“Getting European football is another platform where we might be able to attract another standard of player and that ultimately is what we’re going to try and do.

“At present, there’s nothing on the horizon because, why would a player sign now when he doesn’t get paid until the end of January? Players right throughout the country are weighing up their options.

“It’s going to be very difficult this year because we’re going to have to bring in eight, nine or 10 players again possibly and we’re going to have to set the same standards we set last year.”