Derry City's coming for Shamrock Rovers' crown: says Sadou Diallo ahead of President's Cup clash

​The 23 year-old former Man City and Wolves youth reckons the Candy Stripes are capable of achieving 'something special' this season after their FAI Cup winning exploits last term.

Of course Diallo was left 'heartbroken' when missing out on the Aviva Stadium showpiece last November when he was sent off for reacting to a Robbie McCourt tackle in the final league match of the season against Dundalk.

It was a tough one to take for the man from Guinea who won promotion to EFL League One during his short stint at Forest Green during the 2021/22 season.

He may not have featured in the final against Shelbourne but he was delighted to receive his cup winning medal after playing in the previous rounds and it left him more determined than ever to win more silverware with the club.

And while the President's Cup Final may be a glorified 'friendly', Diallo doesn't see it like that. After falling at the final hurdle in the title race last season, he hopes to go one step further this time around and believes victory on Friday night could strike a psychological blow to the champions.

"There's going to be something on it," he said. "For me, personally I don't look at friendly games as friendly. I just play whatever game is next. That's how I look at it.

"We'll look to set a marker down but we'll just focus on ourselves and not too much on other teams. We will do what we're good at and when we do we can give any team a game."

Rovers won the league by 13 points last season but it was a much closer race than that wide margin would suggest and Diallo insists Derry have their sights set on winning the title and ending Rovers’ hopes of an historic four in a row.

"Even thinking back to how we fell at the last hurdle and it fizzled out a bit before the final, but we are coming and I'm excited, definitely," he smiled.

"I think finishing second last year, obviously the only way to better that is finishing first. So it goes without saying that the title is going to be a target for us.

"We know how hard it's going to be so we're going to have to earn it every day in training and in games but I look forward to that challenge.”

Stephen Bradley’s Shamrock Rovers will attempt to become only the second team to win four consecutive League of Ireland top flight titles and their ambition and achievements so far must be respected, says Diallo.

"I feel like you've got to respect Shamrock Rovers, winning leagues back to back. That's the standard and for us to achieve what they did we have to level that and go beyond.

"We don't really look at them or think about them too much. We just have to focus on ourselves but at the same time respect them and the challenges in and around that as well.

"So it's about focussing on every game at a time and we can achieve something special this year. "