'Frustrated' Kenny Shiels vows to address Derry City's inconsistency
By Gary Ferry
Kenny Shiels is at a loss to understand Derry City’s lack of consistency this season but has promised to get to the bottom of it.
Just days after defeating Sligo Rovers 4-0 at Maginn Park, City fell to their third league defeat in four games as they slipped to a surprising 2-1 loss at St. Patrick’s Athletic on Friday, this despite leading at half time thanks to anointer goal from Ronan Curtis.
With Bray Wanderers losing to Cork City yesterday, Derry would have finished the weekend back in third place had they secured a win at Inchicore, but a drab second half display ultimately cost Derry, who failed to rise to the standards set in the Sligo game just five days earlier. Manager Shiels remains frustrated by the performance.
“You could say it was a missed opportunity and we’re trying to establish reasons why it was that the boys were a bit flat and get the boys up and running again,” he said. “After a good performance at home, we have travelled and we haven’t played well, so we have to meet that and try and get ourselves up again for Bohemians which will not be easy.”
The game began to turn against Derry when referee Rob Rogers awarded a penalty, adjudging that Harry Monaghan had handled the ball in the penalty area. It was the culmination of several penalty appeals from the hosts and Shiels was not impressed with the decision.
“I’m not going to say anything about the penalty,” he stated. “I just think it was poor refereeing and that’s all I’ll say. Everybody could see for themselves that it was not a penalty. It turned the whole game, but we weren’t playing well. In the first 15 minutes of the second half we were really good but that’s the only spell that we had in the game. I don’t know what was wrong with us, we just didn’t play as well as we can and I have to address that.
“There wasn’t that zip to us. We can dress it up and say they got a penalty which they shouldn’t have got but we still have to look at ourselves and look at how we can improve. That’s what we’ll be doing all week.”
City head to Dalymount Park this weekend to face Bohemians hoping to replicate the performance they produced back in February, when they won 4-1. That victory was the beginning of four successive wins which took City to the top of the Premier Division, and with third place seemingly there for the taking this season, Shiels is hoping that Dalymount sparks another fine run of form for his team.
“That has to be our aim to go there and win,” he continued. “Our record against Bohemians has been decent; we beat them four times last season and twice this season. It’s hard to keep sustaining that against the same club but sometimes it happens.”