DERRY CITY manager Declan Devine was fuming after his side’s terrible second rate display against lowly Sligo Rovers, ending in a 2-0 home defeat on Friday night.
The Candy Stripes boss described the performance as not good enough and admitted he could take nothing from the game.
“It was a terrible performance from us, it was not good enough, all around the park was not good enough,” he insisted.
“Very few players have come out with much credit and it’s unacceptable, but we have to dust ourselves down and make sure that we don’t feel sorry for ourselves as we have a big game at St Pat’s on Monday night.”
City started off like they had ended prior to the coronavirus pandemic with another second rate display, which saw them deservedly lose to bottom side Sligo Rovers.
Devine’s men, who lost at Waterford way back in March, were second best for long parts and never tested Rovers goalkeeper Ed McGinty.
In fact LIam Buckley’s side, who started training three weeks after their opponents, looked the more hungrier team and always looked a threat on the counter attack, with man of the match Ronan Coughlan a handful throughout the 90 minutes.
Played behind closed doors, the Candy Stripes had fake crowd noise pumping out through the PA system at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium.
The visitors broke the deadlock on 19 minutes as centre-back Kyle Callan-McFadden made no mistake powerfully heading home after Regan Donelon’s right wing corner found the big defender.
Minutes later some last ditch defending by Eoin Toal denied Rovers a second goal, when his sliding block kept out Ronan Coughlan’s low drive, which looked to be on target.
Derry’s first real serious effort came on 39 minutes but Walter Figueira, who looked isolated for long parts of the first half, saw his effort was deflected wide for a corner.
Right on the stroke of half-time, Rovers had strong claims for a penalty as Coughlan looked to have been brought down inside the box by McCormack, but referee Paul McLaughlin waved away the protests.
The visitors doubled their lead from the penalty spot on 51 minutes after that man Coughlan was brought down inside the six yard box by Toal and the striker dusted himself down and cooly slotted home the resulting spot-kick.
McGinty lost his self discipline on 70 minutes when he raced out to the edge of his area, but fortunately for the keeper Gerardo Bruna’s attempted lob into the unguarded net flew well over.
Right at the death Figueira was inches away from scoring a consolation goal, but his snap-shot, which had McGinty beaten, whistled just wide.
Derry City: Cherrie, McCormack, Toal, Gilchrist (McChrystal HT), Coll; Clifford (Malone 58), Bruna Thomson; Harkin (Ferry 58), Figueira, Mallon.
Sligo Rovers: McGinty, Noone, McFadden, Buckey (Russell 73), Donelon; Seymore, Cawley, Morahan; Devers (Collins 80), Coughlan, De Vries.
Referee: Paul McLaughlin (Monaghan).
