Derry City's Declan Devine delighted by Stephen Mallon extension

The Ireland U21 international has extended his loan deal from Sheffield United until the end of the 2020 campaign and Devine hopes the Belfast man can continue from where he left off prior to the shutdown.

“Stevie is a really talented boy and what he doesn’t get credit for is how good a person he is and how hard he works at his game,” stated Devine.

“Look when you see a player like Stevie you see the flicks and tricks and the ability to go past people, but he doesn’t miss training sessions, he comes in every day and works extremely hard and lives his life in a really, really good way.

"For instance today (Thursday) he’s training and then tonight he’s going to take Oxford Bulls a lot of footballs, which he won at a recent charity event and that’s the type of person he is. He isn’t your typical flash footballer, he’s a real honest lad from a real good family in Belfast and we are delighted to keep him.

“I’m sure he had so many options in terms of where he could have went, because he was lighting the league up, never mind Derry City. He scored two goals and it was probably the wrong time for him for the season to shutdown, but for us it was always a no brainer to keep him.

“I think the relationship we have with Sheffield United has certainly stood us in good stead with Stevie as well.”

With Tim Nilsen departing, Devine knows City need attacking options and that area on the pitch is his next target.

“There’s no doubt about it, we are looking to strengthen at the top end of the pitch and that’s our priority,” he added.

“We have to make the right choices and we have to make sure that when we bring players in that they are the right fit, because we don’t get a second chance with this one, because their 14 games to go plus the FAI Cup and Europe, so it has to be the right type of people.

"Look we have a few conversations on the go at the minute, we are speaking to three or four players, but we’ll keep things under wraps and working behind the scenes to see what we can come up with.

“Throughout Derry you have every type of rumour at the minute, from Owen Da Gama to Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe, but at the minute we have to make sure they are the right fit for us.”

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