Derry City's transfer policy must improve: admits Declan Devine

Mr O’Doherty last week suggested there could be changes made at the end of the season as he plans to forge a long term solution which sustains the Brandywell club well into the future.

One area Devine agrees needs significant improvement is the recruitment and transfer policy at the club, stressing it’s far from ideal to have a 15 player turnaround during the close season.

In his first season back at the club in 2019 Devine had no choice but to build an entirely new squad from scratch with just four players under contract.

It’s something which hasn’t proved as successful this season and the large upheaval of players was made it all the more difficult to build a team spirit this year due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Devine faces another rebuild when the disappointing 2020 campaign draws to a close in the coming weeks but it’s not something he wants to be repeating.

Of course that job of attracting players to the club for next season is made all the more difficult given the precarious nature of the League of Ireland and the fact teams simply don’t know what format the league will take in 2021 or if supporters will be allowed through the turnstiles to add additional revenue.

Unless City win the FAI Cup, they can’t offer European football next season which has been a huge draw for the top players in the past, Devine and Technical Director, Paddy McCourt not yet having that particular wild card to play.

When it comes to competing for the best talent in the League of Ireland, Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk hold the upper hand given their bumper budgets and ability to offer 52 week contracts.

So while Derry fans will hope that Devine can somehow entice former players, Michael Duffy - out of contract at Dundalk at the end of the year - and Danny Lafferty, who Devine’s admitted to keeping tabs on, and perhaps launch a bid for Patrick McEleney to return to Brandywell, it will take a special offer to prise them from the top clubs.

Devine will once again be forced into looking to England, Scotland and beyond for players who are attempting to relaunch their careers or who are in search of first team football but for those players, their hunger and loyalty to the shirt will always be questioned.

From last season’s successful fourth place finish, Derry lost key players like David Parkhouse, the league’s top scorer, Junior Ogedi-Uzokwe, Jamie McDonagh, Barry McNamee and Greg Sloggett but, for some, it wasn’t for want of trying. Parkhouse, Junior and Sloggett all turned down Derry offers to go elsewhere!

City, armed with a 30 per cent increase in the transfer budget, brought in Danny Lupano (loan from Hull), Tim Nilsen, Adam Liddle (loan from Reading), Stephen Mallon (loan from Sheffield United) and Moussa Bakayoko alongside proven League of Ireland players, Conor Clifford, Conor McCormack and Walter Figueira at the start of the season.

Four of those (Lupano, Nilsen, Liddle, Bakayoko) moved on during the lockdown period in March for various reasons and Joe Thomson, Ibrahim Meite, Adam Hammill, James Akintunde, Jake Dunwoody and Cameron McJannett all arrived during the summer transfer window.

Coupled with the constant disruption to league fixtures throughout the remainder of the league programme it was always going to be an unenviable task to gel the team together and gather momentum with 14 games to go.

Next season, hopefully, there will be less postponements and it will perhaps be a full 36 game campaign where teams can be judged on their merits.

Devine admits there must be improvements made in terms of recruitment and a greater onus given to the club’s Academy.

He isn’t yet in a position to start offering contracts and rebuild his team for next year because he’s concentrating fully on Friday’s FAI Cup quarter-final against Sligo Rovers. However he expects movement soon as things become clearer in the coming weeks.

“Football is in a very unusual predicament at the moment,” he said.

“There are a lot of players out of work. I don’t know what the plans are for the League of Ireland season moving forward. for 2021.

“We certainly have a list that we want to try and get to make sure we’re competitive. We also have to understand that certain aspects haven’t worked this year and we have to try and get better.

“We actually know where we want to go but whether we can do that will be a question for the coming weeks.

“Most importantly for us, we want to try and win this next game. That’s the most important factor for us at the minute. We want to try and get a bit of training under our belts leading into Sligo and see where that takes us. But there certainly has to be a plan put in place for what comes after this season.”

Does he envisage a major upheaval and another revolving door policy at the Brandywell Stadium?

“If you look over the course of the last four or five years the amount of players and the turnover of players, it tells you there are certain aspects of the club where we need to strive to get better.

“I agree with the Chairman in terms of there needs to be a longer term plan. What I will say is, that as a football club, we are very fortunate to have that man at the helm because I have travelled around Ireland and around this league for a long time and without Philip O’Doherty we would be in a very precarious situation on the back of Covid.

“We’re very grateful to have a man who is willing to invest in his hometown club and try and put a structure in place to sustain the club.

“The way it is at the minute, let’s be honest, there’s probably been the guts of about 40 or 50 players that have been at the club over a short period of time and that can’t continue.

“The academy at the club has been working extremely hard. Yes, we haven’t been able to blood as many youngsters this year as we would’ve liked to have done as we’ve been in a precarious situation.

“I think the lifeblood of Derry City Football Club has to be based around young, local players.

"At the same time we have to make sure there’s a happy medium in terms of the players being ready to play, players that want to play for the club, and we have to understand that some of the best players we’ve had at this football club has come from outside of Derry,” Devine added.