Soccer

Derry City face testing trip to Denmark to face Midtjylland

Rory Patterson hopes to see some action for Derry City in the evening's Europa League tie in Denmark
Rory Patterson hopes to see some action for Derry City in the evening's Europa League tie in Denmark Rory Patterson hopes to see some action for Derry City in the evening's Europa League tie in Denmark

DERRY City’s Rory Patterson is delighted to back playing. The talented striker has been out for three months but returned to action in last Friday night’s home loss to Cork City and he’s looking forward to Thursday evening’s Europa League first round qualifying clash at Midtjylland (7pm).

It’s widely accepted that City have probably drawn the toughest tie of the four SSE Airtricity League teams.

The Danes knocked out Southampton at the Europa League play-off stage in the 2015/16 season and beat Manchester United in the first leg of their round of 32 clash the same season

They have Holland international Rafael Van Der Vaart in their squad.

“Look there is a lot of doom and gloom about it. But at the end of the day as players, the Champions League is the top one but for teams like us in our country you want to play the big teams in the Europa League,” said Patterson.

“There are two ways to look at it – you could have got an easier team to progress but we’re going there and they are a

well-established European team that beat United a couple of years ago, and Southampton as well.

“They have good pedigree and have the likes of Van Der Vaart as well but we’re looking forward to it because it will be a great experience, especially for the younger boys. It’s going to be their first taste of it.”

With Conor McDermott (groin) and Barry McNamee (ankle) both missing and Dean Jarvis doubtful, City may struggle; in fact, boss Kenny Shiels has already admitted that he doesn’t want to be embarrassed.

“I don’t think that’s just us, I think that’s any team in our league that goes away first,” added Patterson.

“Dundalk probably done it all the way through their campaign, they kept it tight away from home. Obviously, we’ll try to stay in the game for as long as we can and not give away any goals.

“Who knows what could happen then.

“They will be coming over to play in Sligo which is a tight wee ground as well. We’re not going out gung-ho thinking we’ll pick them off.

“We’ll show them respect but at the same time we’re not just going there to run after them.”

The former Northern Ireland international knows tonight’s clash could turn out to be a long evening, but he’s glad to be back in a Candystripes jersey.

“It just depends the way they line up. I don’t think they will play that fast, with that pace. Who knows, they could absolutely have us doing doggies for 90-minutes,” he added.

“It was a frustrating start to the season. But it was good to get some minutes against Cork, even though the result was disappointing.

“Fitness wise, I’m grand. It wasn’t that sort of match where I was making big long sprints or anything like that.

“We pinned them back for long periods but they are good at what they do and they consolidated well, especially when they went down to 10-men, they grind it out.”