Alan Reynolds expected to return to Derry City

Alan Reynolds is expected to return to Derry City as number two to Ruaidhri Higgins just weeks ahead of the new season.

Reynolds returned to his home town team of Waterford to join up with Keith Long back in April, bringing a spell of 16 months and 51 games with Derry to an end.

The decision to leave at the time was down to personal reasons, with Reynolds describing it as ‘the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my football career’, but he is now on the verge of a return, with the deal dependent on Waterford and Derry City agreeing a compensation deal for the remainder of his contract.

If Reynolds does return, it will be his third spell at the club, having served under Stephen Kenny back in 2008.

There has yet been no official confirmation from Derry City on the status of Paddy McLaughlin, who, it is believed, is no longer in his role as assistant manager at the club. With 18 months of his deal still to run, the future of McLaughlin is uncertain, but he, as it stands, is still employed by the club.

Meanwhile, Derry City began their pre-season with a 2-2 draw away at Finn Harps on Sunday. Michael Duffy and Sean Patton scored the City goals while Ryan Flood and Max Hutchinson responded for Harps.

“It was a tricky pitch to say the least and really, really heavy on the lads’ legs,” Higgins said afterwards. “Obviously, people are at different stages of pre-season, some are flying while some are just getting going and we have a couple of niggles as well so it was important we managed the minutes properly. From a physical point of view it was a good exercise on an extremely difficult pitch.”

The Derry City fans who travelled to Finn Park also got to see captain Patrick McEleney back on a football pitch after his double Achilles operation in Sweden.  

“Patrick is probably ahead of schedule and he’s doing really well,” Higgins confirmed. “He’s trained a good bit over the last couple of weeks, and we’ll not rush him back in too quickly so it’s really good from that end.

“I was a bit worried about the pitch, but he was adamant that he wanted to play. He was feeling good so he wanted to get out there. We were definitely touch and go whether we were going to play Patrick and one or two others, but I’m glad we did it now, and they leave unscathed, and we move on.”

No risks

Neither of Derry City’s two new signings Daniel Kelly and Pat Hoban were in action on Sunday, with Higgins not prepared to take any risks on the Finn Park surface.

“Daniel Kelly got a very minor knock this week in training, very minor,” he clarified. “Pat, for the first week or 10 days of pre-season, he was training on his own. He was in with us this week and we certainly weren’t going to take a chance, but we’ll build him up this week again and Thursday might be different, but we’ll see on that one.

“We know that when we get everyone available, there will be some headaches and to be honest, I’m looking forward to that. I want headaches, and the more players we have available to us, the more opportunities we have to win games. The first half of the season is overloaded with fixtures, so we need everyone jumping out of their skin come the start of the season.”

Derry City head to Sligo Rovers for their next pre-season friendly on Thursday night before heading o Glenavon next Tuesday, and for Higgins, it’s all about his players saying fit. 

“There’s no substitute for match practice,” he agreed. “You can train all you want and do all the running you want, but you can’t replicate games so it was good to get them back out onto the pitch.

We have some niggles as well so we’re not risking people. The young lads will get good minutes in pre-season as well, particularly in the early stages, but you’ll see as the weeks go by, we’ll get fitter and fitter and that’s the plan.”