Ruaidhri Higgins calls Derry City players to show fight and 'wear jersey with pride'

​The City boss agreed with City fans' scathing assessment on social media after an embarrassing defeat to rivals St Pat's on Monday, describing his biggest defeat as manager as 'gut-wrenching' and 'soft-centred'.

"I understand that as well," he said of the fans' reaction to the defeat. “They have every right to be agitated.

"Absolutely, they spend good money travelling up and down the country watching us. They want more and demand more and that's par for the course, that's the football club we're at now. "We're trying to move in a direction where we compete at the top end of Irish football and I think up until this point we've done it.

"I think our supporters know and I know and the players know that we're capable of doing it."

And Higgins expects a reaction, promising the Brandywell attendance will witness a full-blooded display as they 'fight' to go into the midseason break with a victory which will ensure they remain, at most, just four points behind Shamrock Rovers.

"It's been a difficult 10 days to be honest, we've been below par," said Higgins. Everyone is hurt, absolutely.

"No one left Richmond on Monday night full of the joys of spring. Everyone left devastated and rightly so because it's not the level required for this football club and everyone has taken responsibility, including myself, absolutely."

There's been a post-mortem this week and while Higgins felt it was important not to 'sweep it under the carpet', he stressed to the players how capable they are recovering from this latest blip in form.

"Every time we lose a game we analysis it, question it and I look myself in the mirror. We've had conversations. We haven't swept it under the carpet at all, we've dealt with it but now we have to park it and move forward.

“Whatever it takes on Friday night, we have to try and win this game."

It's a fine balancing act between dishing out a rollicking and motivating the players to perform.

"You have to deal with things but you have to keep people going. Obviously you have to deal with the mistakes and why it happened but also remind people about how capable they are as well.

"This team has shown over the last two years that we're capable of putting in really big performances. As long as we come here on Friday night against Bohemians and fight to put three points on the board for the club, for supporters and people who care about the club then that's all we can ask for.

"Whatever the result may be, as long as everyone is totally committed to the cause and that our supporters see fight and hunger to win, then we can't ask for anymore.

"We can then go into the break on a positive note if we've won our last game and then we can attack the rest of the season when we come back.

"Everyone knows we need to fight back, stand up and stick our chests out and wear the jersey with pride.

"Regardless of the result people can see and leave the ground knowing we gave absolutely everything."