Derry City's Alan Reynolds pleased with UCD win but felt performance could have been better

Reynolds felt the Candy Stripes weren’t at their best in Monday night’s win at UCD, this despite securing a comfortable 4-0 victory, however he feels they will need to raise their game against Stephen O’Donnell’s men.

"I spoke to the players in the changing room after the UCD game and told them that we'll need to be better come Friday and they know that,” stated Reynolds.

"Dundalk are a proper team, they'll be fit and they'll be well organised and it will be a real test.

"Dundalk made changes against Shelbourne on Monday, but whoever they play they are top quality players. I think they made a lot of changes this season, I think they brought in seven lads from the UK, so the manager has obviously got to look further afield to find players.

"If I know Stevie's track record over the last few years then those new signings will be good players.”

The Waterford native, who was in charge in the dug-out at the Belfield Bowl on Monday evening in Ruaidhrí Higgins’ absence, wants Derry to maintain their good start to the season and after two victories in Dublin in the space of 72 hours, he now wants more positive results at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium.

City face Dundalk tomorrow evening and then host Sligo Rovers on St Patrick’s Day and Reynolds admits he wants Derry to keep their momentum going heading into the international break.

"That's the one, we want to keep our momentum going, because if you look at the fixtures, we've had three away in our opening four games, all three in Dublin, so to have the points return that we have we'll gladly take it,” he said.

"Look we have targets all along and we have two home games coming up, which will be really difficult, but hopefully we can pick up points.

"We've rested up and after being away in Dublin twice in a matter of days, the players were off on Tuesday and came back into training on Wednesday."

The Republic of Ireland U21 assistant boss was thrilled by Derry’s win over the Students but felt their overall display could have been better.

"I was really delighted with the victory, scoring 4-0 goals, but could the performance be better I think it could, especially the second half,” he explained.

"When you look at it last year we really hit the ground running and we were flying early on and the performances were really good, but I don’t think this year as yet we’ve really got to the level, but I think it will come.

"With fellas getting more game time and we get fellas back from injury; but I was delighted with the way it went on Monday. We prepared really well and travelled down on Sunday and the lads were really professional in their job."

Reynolds is really thrilled by Jordan McEneff’s goal form.

"It’s great and he works really hard, he’s a great lad,” he stated. “He's had a tough time over the last few years, but he’s started the season really well.

"His first goal was a superb finish and his forward run for his second goal was outstanding and I suppose it nearly killed the game at that stage, but look he wants to improve and a midfielder that scores goals are hard to get.”