Derry City to wear new Adidas home kit tonight

The Brandywell men will be wearing the new Adidas home kit in this evening's clash against Bohemians.

The new jersey will be on general sale in mid-March.

Devine feels his side are coming up against a Bohs team brimming with talented players.

The Dubliners, fresh from two wins this week against Waterford and Sligo Rovers, finished Monday night’s success over Liam Buckley’s men with a team of an average age of 21 and Devine believes in midfielder, Daniel Mandroiu they have one of the best players in the country.

“They have a real good work ethic about them and Danny Mandroiu is as good a footballer that’s in Ireland at this moment in time,” he stated.

“Wee (Keith) Wardy is as good a footballer in the division, he’s a very, very good player on his day and (Kris) Twardek is doing very well for them.

“Hopefully the conditions are good and hopefully we have a big crowd, who get right behind the players because the players have really given a lot behind the scenes and they are working extremely hard.

“We can’t wait for the game to begin, as we want to test ourselves against the best teams. We were very unfortunate against Dundalk, we should have probably won the game against (Finn) Harps but we didn’t play to our levels, but again this presents another opportunity for players to go and stake a claim for a first team place.”

Bohs midfielder Keith Ward feels the Brandywell men will be putting themselves under pressure to get their first win of the season, but Devine disagrees, although he does admit that the ex-Derry City man will know the Brandywell is going to a tough test for the visitors.

“Listen, if pressure is on us after 180 minutes of football, then we have got to be really asking ourselves some questions,” he insisted.

“There’s 36 games to go minimum and there’s certainly no pressure. The pressure that’s on us is from ourselves, in terms of our performance.

"We have to make sure that we play to our strengths and play to the levels that we are capable of playing at and, look, I’ll let everybody else say what they want to say but Wardy coming up to the Brandywell, I’m sure he knows it’s a difficult game, as we know it’s a difficult game.

“Look I’m very, very confident going into the match and I think it’s a game that we can show what we are about, but we are also understanding Bohemians are a good side and they are coming here to make it difficult for us.”

Devine has a fully fit squad for this evening’s game and feels if his squad can replicate their performances in training in games, then they won’t be too far away from getting that first success of the campaign and he also believes the competition for places is continuing to heat up.

“We have a few wee niggles but everybody will be fit enough and competition for places is rife,” he added.

“A guy like Colm Horgan, who has been sensational since he has come to club, is sitting waiting for his first minutes on the pitch.

“We have real competition in the middle of the park and you only have to look at the forward line. People got a glimpse of Stephen Mallon, who has really settled in well, Moussa Bakayoko hasn’t played yet, while we have Jamie McDonagh, (Tim) Nielsen, (Walter) Figueira and (Adam) Liddle all up top, so we have got a lot of good players.

"That’s what we said from the offset that we would have good players and getting the best 11 onto the pitch for any given game is key.

“We have to pick teams that win certain games and certain other teams will win other games, but we are are just concentrating on Bohemians this week and if we can get the performances that I see on a daily basis at training then we’ll be alright.”