Derry City's Declan Devine reflects on his most difficult year in management

Reluctant to make excuses for his team’s poor league campaign, Devine agreed that there had been mitigating factors for Derry’s seventh place finish as they avoided a relegation play-off on the final day.

The ‘frustrated’ Brandywell boss concedes performances in the league haven’t been good enough and he admits the club has underachieved this season.

Few sides in the league were able to gather momentum throughout the truncated 18 game campaign and City, amongst others, found consistency in performances hard to come by.

However, for Devine, the most difficult part of managing the football club through the global pandemic was attempting to harness a team spirit with little or no opportunity for his players to socialise or build relationships off the pitch.

Last season team spirit and character was there in abundance as the team never lost successive games in the league.

Given the social distancing rules, protocols surrounding training and lack of atmosphere at games, Covid has changed every aspect of managing the team this year which has been extremely challenging for both players and staff at Brandywell.

And ahead of the FAI Cup quarter-final against Sligo Rovers, Devine’s mandate is to increase the positivity in the City camp as they look to salvage something from a ‘crazy’ season.

“It was unbelievable this year,” said the Creggan man. “I’m not making any excuses. The reality is our league campaign this year has not been good enough.

“We haven’t had any kind of consistency or any high levels. We’ve had moments when I felt we did okay like against Shelbourne, parts of the Dundalk game and the Waterford game.

“Listen, there’s no beating around the fact that it hasn’t been good enough this campaign but at the same time there’s so many factors involved in that.

“Trying to build a team by bringing in 14 or 15 new players and trying to gel that team whenever you can’t even change together in the changing room on a daily basis, that’s such an important factor in modern football - the team spirit, the team effort.

“We have guys coming in on a daily basis who come to training changed already. They can’t have any social aspect as a group.

"They come in, do their training and clear back to the house until the next day. There’s no interaction until matchday which is the only time we get into that changing room environment.

"It’s been hard to form a bond between the players. There’s lots of aspects, no supporters, there are lots of circumstances which have been extremely difficult to work in.”

Asked if it was his most challenging year as a manager Devine agreed wholeheartedly.

“Without doubt, without a shadow of a doubt but listen, there’s no excuses. It should’ve been better. We’re not the only club that has been underachieving this year,” he pointed out.

“You only have to look throughout the league and see the points tally that some clubs got coming back in after the Covid lockdown.

“We’re not the only club that’s frustrated or feels like they haven’t reached the standards they potentially should have.”

Derry won less than half of their nine league matches at Brandywell this season and the absence of the club’s supporters has badly affected performances.

“I came into the club and said the supporters are everything to this club. There are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that makes this year extremely difficult.

“It’s something we have to reflect on. We have to strive to improve certain aspects of our club moving forward into the next campaign.

“From my point of view now, we have to stay together, stay as positive as we possibly can, try to go to Sligo and get a result which will put you into the semi-final of the FAI Cup.”

Ahead of the Cup quarter-final Derry will be afforded something which they were denied in the lead-up to their last two league matches - time on the training pitch!

Just 24 hours after completing their 14 day self-isolation period, the FAI forced a depleted Derry into playing two games in three days in Dublin and Cork respectively.

Hardly ideal preparation especially considering some of the players had contracted Covid and were potentially still getting over the effects of the virus.

Leading into next Friday’s cup match at the Showgrounds, however, Devine plans plenty of work on the pitch and he’s excited about his team’s prospects in what he described as a ‘make or break’ game.

“The madness of football this year, not just in the League of Ireland, but right throughout Europe and the world, the football results have been completely unpredictable,” he said when asked what he expects from the clash with the resurgent Bit O’Red.

“And the way things are going at the minute, nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow never mind in two weeks’ time. What we have is a bit of time to prepare on the training pitch for a game which, in my opinion is a 50/50 game.

“Sligo will fancy their chances and we will go there fancying our chances. The bottom line is it’s make or break. You have one game now to salvage a bit of quality in your season and an opportunity to get to a semi-final.

“It’s nearly a final in itself. It’s something we have to prepare for and put our whole heart into in terms of trying to get through to the next round.”