Stephen O'Donnell felt Dundalk were 'miles the better team' against Derry City

​Pointing to his team's possession statistics and chances created, the Galwegian was at a loss to explain how his team came away empty handed.

Back-to-back defeats to the league's top two teams were no doubt hard to take given their performances in both matches at Tallaght and Oriel Park, however, in truth Dundalk simply weren't clinical enough and were punished at the other end by a hungry Derry City side.

"The mind boggles at the result," said O'Donnell afterwards. "In terms of our performance I thought we were brilliant - the best we've played since I've been at the club.

"I thought we were good last week but we raised it a couple of notches. Obviously we gave up really poor goals - it's been the story of our season - but from a performance point of view I thought we were excellent.

"I think we had 70 or 72 percent possession and 18 attempts and 30 odd touches in the opposition box.

"We weren't clinical but we shouldn't be giving up three goals because we didn't have to withstand any really serious pressure throughout the game.

“We need to make sure we're not giving up anything cheap and if we have that dominance then we will score."

Brian Maher was in inspired form to keep Derry's lead intact while Pat Hoban and Johannes Yli-Kokko both hit the woodwork in the second half before the former finally found the net from the penalty spot in the 95th minute.

It was those isolated moments when Derry punished Dundalk which led to their downfall on the night.

"I think we hit the woodwork three times. Look, on another day you score four or five but we didn't. From a performance point of view I can't ask any more of them

"We were too deep for the first goal but we were by miles the better team, we just gave up silly goals. Isolated moments we weren't good and gave up goals but all round performance I thought we were excellent.

"If you give up three goals with minimal pressure on you you're not happy so we need to have a look at that,” added the Dundalk manager who turns his attentions to the FAI Cup.