KENNY SHIELS, the Derry City manager, admitted that he considered submitting a request to the FAI to have last night’s game against Finn Harps postponed – because of the amount of injuries within his squad.
The ‘patched up’ Conor McDermott, Ryan McBride, Dean Jarvis and Niclas Vemmelund all played, although Aaron Barry failed in his bid to be fit for a game in which Derry cruised to a 5-0 win.
While Shiels told Donegal Sport Hub that he ‘didn’t bother making the call’, he later claimed that he telephoned the FAI offices at Abbotstown, but ‘I only got through to an answer phone’.
Picture caption: Finn Harps goalkeeper Richard Brush with Derry City’s Nathan Boyle. Picture by Gary Foy, newsandsportfiles
“I was trying to do that,” said Shiels.
[adrotate group=”50″]“I didn’t bother making the call. It was one of these things. We were worried about going into the game with so many players missing. We patched them up and you could see that they were patched up.
“I thought they got a grip of the game. We went out to dominate the ball as much as we could, to try and kill the atmosphere as much as possible. We wanted to sustain that to get it front and help the boys to relax.
“We took a wee bit of football out of the team to add a wee bit of a direct play. It took the predictability out of our game.
[adrotate group=”38″]“I was pleased that we got one before half-time because that gave us a psychological advantage.”
City were 2-0 up at the break, courtesy of two Aaron McEneff penalties, while Nathan Boyle, Lukas Schubert and Keith Ward added goals in the second half for the Candystripes.
Shiels said: “The Aaron McEneff we had in March wouldn’t have been as confident as he is now. He owed that to himself. He has bounced back and has grown in confidence.”
[adrotate group=”37″]Listen to the full interview below …
https://soundcloud.com/donegalsporthub-club-notes/kenny-shiels-after-derry-city-hammer-finn-harps
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