Derry City's Ben Doherty backs Jamie McGonigle to back amongst the goals soon

​The 26-year-old, who played with the Dungiven man at Coleraine, believes the frontman is now an all-round better player.

McGonigle has only scored once this season but Doherty feels once he gets started, the goals will flow again.

"Jamie has always been a goalscorer and whenever I played with him previously at Coleraine, that's what he did," he admitted.

"I don't want to be disrespecting Jamie, but since coming back to Derry and playing with him again, I've seen a more all-rounded striker than when I last played with him.

"Now that's down to both Jamie himself for putting the work in and also the managers he played under who have also put the work into him.

"Look, everything that Jamie puts in now will probably get him a few more goals, which he probably wouldn't have got during his time at Coleraine, but look he's a striker at the end of the day, he wants to be scoring goals and for me it's just a matter of time because he works very hard everyday at training and I feel something will fall for him.

"Jamie's one of those players that when he gets one or two goals in a row, I think they'll all just come for him then and then it's a matter of him just kicking on and trying to reach his own target."

The former Larne man knows that City's record at home hasn't matched their away form this season, but like McGonigle back scoring goals on a regular basis, he backs Ruaidhrí Higgins' side to start racking up the points at the Brandywell.

"To be fair every time I have spoken to the media this year so far, our home form has been the main talking point," he explained.

"We need to be affecting our home record a lot better than what the boys probably did last year, obviously I wasn't here, but I think it has been well drilled from Ruaidhrí that the home record definitely needs to be improved on, especially if we want to go and do anything this year.

"To date our away record has been very good this season and the home record is something you could look at and it probably could be a bit better.”