Ruaidhri Higgins talks Derry City's potential transfer ins and outs: "I've a budget, contrary to reports"

The Derry City boss hailed the support of club chairman Mr Philip O'Doherty who has made no secret of his intention to back Higgins in the transfer market in a bid to wrestle the title from Rovers but stressed he's not expecting a blank cheque from the billionaire businessman and must allow 'one or two' players to exit Brandywell in order to bring in additional firepower.

"I have a budget, contrary to reports," said Higgins after Derry's emphatic 3-0 win over St Pat's on Foyleside cemented second spot in the league. "If there's players coming in then one or two will obviously have to leave as well.

"Philip [O'Doherty] has been absolutely brilliant to me," he added. "Getting Europe in our first season in 2021 was a big help because it probably accelerated the process but he's been brilliant and has backed me. He does say 'no' at times as well," he laughed. "He does! But he's been absolutely brilliant. He's been a great chairman and great to work with. We have a great working relationship. So we want to push this on now."

There's no debating where Derry's title charge went wrong this season and Higgins admits his team needed to be more ruthless in front of the posts. That needs to change if they're to bridge that seven points gap between themselves and the champions next year and it's an area Higgins and his staff are focusing their recruitment drive over the next few weeks.

Dundalk's Daniel Kelly is rumoured to have signed a two-year contract with the Candy Stripes and Higgins admits it's not just a No.9 he's been targeting.

"I want to bring to the club players who can score goals," he explained. "Whether that's wide players who can score goals. We've come up short in that department. If you look at the goals for [column] it will be up there with one of the highest but there's been too many games we haven't scored in this year.

"So whether it's wide players, centre forwards, scoring goals from set plays, midfield players, we need to score more goals, that's the bottom line. When we're recruiting and looking at what we do next then that has to be a priority.

"Listen, we have really talented players at the club. We have players who can score goals but we need more of them. If you look at clubs that are successful in winning leagues right around Europe, they have six or seven players that can get in and around double figures and that's what we need."

When quizzed directly about Gaffney and Stephen Bradley's claim that top clubs are circulating around the Galwegian who is out of contract, Higgins responded: "We're in the market for good players and he's a good player.

"To be honest we're in a league now where clubs are signing players on longer deals. It's not the case where every year players are out of contract. He is out of contract as are a few others. We're in the market for good players and he's a good player," he repeated.

The future of some of the 2023 Derry squad is also under discussion with Sadou Diallo in particular now out of contract. The midfielder has put on record his desire to remain on Foyleside and Higgins, who refused to go into detail about potential departures, insisted he wants to keep the former Man City youth at the club.

"I'll talk more about that next week [players leaving]. Diallo was suspended [for the game against Pat's]. Of course I want to keep him. We've been speaking with him since the summer to be honest with you. It has to be right for all parties. We would like to keep him here. He's been a very good player."

While most of the City squad take off on an end of season holiday to Spain, Higgins will remain at Brandywell to attend to contract talks and recruitment before taking a well earned and much needed rest of his own.

"The next couple of weeks will be busy and hopefully I can get as much work done in those weeks as possible so I can go and take a breather myself. It's badly needed to make sure I, and the staff, come back along with the players refreshed and raring to go.”