Patrick McEleney - 'There's only so many opportunities the players can get'
Derry City captain insists the players must take responsibility for title failure
Patrick McEleney admits that the players must take responsibility for Derry City’s title failure, insisting they didn’t produce when they needed to at big moments during the league campaign.
With just 14 wins in 35 league games, and 13 draws, there have many several missed opportunities for the Candystripes to take control in the tile race, particularly in the Brandywell doble header against Bohemians and Sligo Rovers just two weeks ago. Even one victory in those two games would have given City an advantage in the title race, but successive 1-1 draws left them in a perilous position, which ended with last night’s 1-0 defeat at St. Patrick’s Athletic.
“I think there's only so many chances in the back end of the season you're going to get,” McEleney said. “Tonight was another one, and we just didn't take it. I know in the second half we were pushing, and on our night maybe we could have scored a couple, but you're chasing our tail, aren't you, after half-time again.”
Brandon Kavanagh’s first half goal was enough against a goal-shy Derry City side that have scored just eight goals in their last 10 league games.
“It was avoidable,” McEleney continued. “Teams don't need to play brilliant football sometimes. We're killing ourselves, playing into teams' hands. We've done it in Drogheda as well. We have to have the perfect goal.
“Nobody gives us anything. It's a massively disappointing night. I'm just trying to think straight here to be honest. It's a tough one to swallow, but we're going to have to switch very quickly because we have a big game next week, and then we have a bigger game the week after.”
The Derry City players have to somehow pick themselves up, with European football still not secured and an FAI Cup final to come, but even McEleney admits that the pain of the title failure will stay for a while.
“Again, it goes back to, look, the players only get so many opportunities,” he said. “You can point fingers at everything, point fingers at everybody else and pitches and everything, but as players, you only get so many opportunities. I'm part of this, by the way, and we didn't take them.”
“I'm as gutted as anybody. I think people forget we're from Derry too. I'm a Derry fan still as well.”
“We should have won it, let’s be honest. We probably should have won the League, but as players, we didn't produce.”