Kenny Shiels targeting transfer window as he reflects on difficult campaign for Derry City so far

Kenny Shiels believes that Derry City deserve huge credit for their achievements so far this season, after guiding the team to third place once again.

The July transfer window promises new arrivals at the club but in the meantime Shiels is taking stock on what has been an extremely difficult campaign so far, both on and off the pitch.

Friday night’s win over Galway, which took the Candy Stripes to ten games undefeated, means that City are now just three points behind league champions Dundalk, who, incidentally, have lost twoice as many games as Derry this season.

“The players are learning all the time and they learnt so much and to come away with a win is outrageously good,” he said. “We’re sitting in third position. Of the 18 players, 11 are under 21, and I think we had six teenagers on the pitch at one time.

“Let’s blow our trumpet because its’ ten games undefeated. We can dress it up because it’s three wins and seven draws, but ten games undefeated with a shallow squad and getting a couple of lads out of school to come in; I can’t sing their praises enough. The players have been unbelievable.

I’m sure you take a lot of pride in seeing young guys from Top of the Hill and Culmore and the Creggan and Bogside; I’m sure Ryan McBride will take a lot of heart from that as well because they are his mates, they are his team mates from his city. It’s enormous the amount of kids we have in that side doing so well.”

Shiels asked his players to start the game on the front foot against Galway and they did noit let him down, with two goals in eight minutes at the start of the game giving Derry the platform for Friday’s win.

“I thought it was a great start and it could have been three, it could have been four; the game could have been 6-3,” he continued. “I reckon that would be accurate. That team we were playing against will get goals, there’s no question about that and they came close on a couple of occasions; they hit the bar but we hit the post. Nathan put in a good shift before he went off with fatigue and that gives you an indication of the commitment the boys are giving the city and everybody should be proud of them.

“I could sing their praises all day, I’m just delighted for them, and delighted for the club to be in such a position after such a difficult season so far. We have gone ten on the bounce now not getting beaten. It was my 50th league game for Derry and in 42 of those we haven’t been beaten and I think that’s testament to the organisation of how we prepare. To be undefeated in that amount of games is a fantastic achievement for the boys.”

Shiels is now heading away for a break with his family, but he promised that the hard work is just beginning as he builds towards another successful season with Derry City.

“I’m going away for five days with my wife and my grandchildren so I’m looking forward to that,” he said. “Then we’re back in and we’re going to work extremely hard. The break is to prepare them for hard work and the science of that is that we will regenerate and we will recover and then we come in and then we work and we work and we work. We’ve got to keep working because we are restricted in what we can do with the size of our squad so we have to replace those deficiencies with hard work.”