Tiernan Lynch discusses Dom Thomas' future and potential Derry City outgoings

​Pat Hoban is understood to be one of those players who could be potentially on their way out of the club this summer while Scottish attacker Dom Thomas has been linked with a return to Scotland.

Derry boss Lynch admits there's players in his squad who 'will want to move on' given limited game-time during the opening 18 matches of the campaign and Hoban and Thomas certainly fit that bill - neither player understood to be happy with their bit-part roles so far this year.

Hoban has been previously linked with moves to Linfield and Galway while Thomas is believed to want to return home to Scotland with teams in both the SPL and Scottish Championship keeping tabs on his situation.

Thomas was signed on a two-year contract last January when making the move from Queen of the South while Hoban's current deal expires at the end of the season.

"I think there's probably players in the squad right now that will want to move on," said Lynch. "I think there's players in the squad who maybe feel they're not getting the game-time they deserve or they need at the stages of their career they're in, whether they're younger or older. So I've no doubt there will be outs as well as ins."

Lynch was remaining tight-lipped when asked if the club had been approached for any of his current squad members.

"Yeah, but there's been no formal approaches that I'm prepared to talk about in public. They're approaches we have to keep in-house and talk to the players and get the players to understand where we're at with it before we go outside with it."

In the case of Thomas, who scored his first goal for the club with a late equaliser against Drogheda last May, Lynch insists the Scotsman isn't 'jumping out the door' but suggested the player hasn't been happy with his lack of time on the pitch.

"I think you're always going to get that," he said when asked if there was any substance to reports about the player's potential exit. "You're always going to get people from outside, especially with Dom not playing.

"He's not a kid who has ever downed tools on us or someone who doesn't try. He's a good pro. It's one of those ones where you wait and see. He's not jumping out the door but he would probably have liked to have played more than he has.

"I know his family is back there [in Scotland] and he lost his father just before Christmas which probably hasn't been easy on him. At this stage no, there's nothing concrete as in Dom's looking to move away or we're looking to move him on. I don't think we're at that stage." Lynch claims he's spoken to more agents over the past week than at any other stage in his life and says the club chairman Philip O'Doherty and the board of directors agree there's a real 'opportunity to strengthen' in the summer window.

Those potential signings won't necessarily depend on moving players on but he expects movement in both directions in the coming weeks.

"It's great to get away and get a bit of time to recharge," he said of the midseason break," but I've probably spoken to more agents in the last week than I've done in my lifetime but it's nice to get back to work again, get on the grass and be around the boys. Get preparing again and back to normality.

"I can tell you that I haven't slept in probably the last three weeks. Looking at players, talking to players, talking to agents, watching players and I do definitely think we have to bring some players in.

"We're not trying to hide that as a club. Ownership and board, it's something they definitely feel there's an opportunity to strengthen and we have to make sure we do that."

Pressed on the identity of those potential signings, he responded: "I have a gazillion names there but whether we get any of them or not I don’t know."

The scale of interest from agents seeking to do business with Derry City and players being offered to the club hasn't surprised Lynch but he's copy and pasted a certain text message which has been sent to dozens of people over the past few weeks players from the European Union are discovering Brandywell isn't an option due to Brexit restrictions.

"It doesn't surprise me that people would want to play for Derry. There hasn't been a huge amount of interest from players from the south of Ireland if truth be told. There's a lot more interest from players in Scotland or England. You also get a huge amount of players from the EU not realising they can't come to Derry because of the whole Brexit situation.

"I've had to type out the one message which I've probably used about 50 times in the last week or 10 days to say we can't touch players with EU passports."

Recruitment has been a big part of Lynch's job since taking the post but he'd rather be on the training pitch, preparing for the visit of Galway on Friday night.

"I'd prefer to be watching Galway or putting sessions together or watching us back or whatever it may be than having to deal with agents, managers or players but that's just part and parcel. "