Derry City's Brian Maher feels squad has right balance

And Maher has described the former UCD front man is a brilliant signing for the Candystripes.

"Colin Whelan will bring goals to our squad,” he insisted, “Goals will be his big thing. I think everywhere he’s gone, he has scored goals.

"He's a very good all round striker but at the end of the day what he wants to do is score and hopefully he can do it up here because I think he's a brilliant signing for the club.

​"The squad, the fans and everyone really is relishing the season getting underway. It's something we're all looking forward to.”

The Dublin native feels that expectation levels in and around the squad are still as high as last season.

"The expectation levels were high last year as well and I don't think too much has changed in that regard,” he added.

"We obviously had a good season last year but we just don't want to have one good season, we want to follow it up so that will be the aim this year.

"All the boys are hungry for more and, as I said, we don't want last year to be a one off. We want to keep winning and we want to go toe-to-toe with the best teams in this league

"There have been a couple additions who've all brought different qualities to the group that maybe we didn't have last year but there hasn’t been wholesale changes.

"I feel Ruaidhrí (Higgins) has just added in a few places in the squad and competition for places in the squad is really good now.”

The 22-year-old was nominated for ‘Goalkeeper of the Year’ in 2022 but narrowly missed out to Shamrock Rovers’ former Northern Ireland international, Alan Mannus, but he hopes that in 2023 he can go a step further.

"It was nice to be nominated at all. It was my first time being up for it and first time at the awards so, yeah, it's something to strive for this season,” he explained.

"I want to be nominated for more and more things and hopefully I can go a step further this year."

Now that he’s not eligible to feature in Jim Crawford’s U21 squad, Maher knows it’s going to be extremely tough to get a call-up to Stephen Kenny’s senior international squad as Premier League trio Gavin Bazunu, Caoimhin Kelleher and Mark Travers are all ahead of him.

"Look, there are three brilliant keepers there so all I can do is look after myself and see what happens. We're very lucky to have three keepers of their calibre,” admitted Maher.

The City net-minder has set himself some personal targets for 2023 regarding keeping clean-sheets but knows Higgins’ men have a tough start to the season.

"I set a target, I think every player sets targets for different things so, yeah, clean-sheets are a target for me,” he insisted.

"We had a tough start away to St Pat's but, listen, there's going to be plenty of difficult games this year. We also have (Shamrock) Rovers again early in the season so it's a tricky start but we had a fairly tricky start last year as well and did quite well. Once we're out the other side, we'll be looking to keep kicking on.

"The quality in this league has gone up and teams are getting better. It's something we had to do ourselves and while I feel we've improved, I still think we can get better.

"I'm expecting every game this season to be difficult, it doesn't matter whether it's at the Brandywell or on the road, but we'll take each game as it comes."