Derry City FC v Sligo Rovers
Brandywell Stadium
Kick Off – 7.05pm
Derry City will host Ian Baraclough’s high flying Sligo Rovers side at the Brandywell this Friday night. In a tie that is to broadcast live on RTé two television, it will be vital for Declan Devine’s men to continue on from their win away at U.C.D last Friday evening.
Having struggled to gain any kind of form since the break, the Candystripes claimed their first clean sheet in the league since they drew with U.C.D in the Brandywell on April 6th. But having already lost to Sligo Rovers since the break the Foylesiders know that this will be no easy task for them.
Derry will be able to call on the services of both their new signings Marc Brolly(Dungannon Swifts) and Conor Murphy (Unattached) after they completed their moves to the club during the week.
Speaking ahead of the tie Declan Devine said. “Both Barry Molloy and Patrick McEleney 50/50 at the minute; Patrick hasn’t trained this week, but the good thing about Patrick is that he doesn’t miss much training sessions and he certainly doesn’t miss many games through injury, but I’m very hopeful come Friday Patrick might pass a test at the last minute.”Sligo will be disappointed about not winning against Bray and they’ll want to get back to winning ways. I was at the Bray match and watching them and at times they were very, very good but at other times Bray made them look ordinary. ”But the one thing about Sligo that if you stand off them and give them too much respect they’ll hurt you, so whatever squad we pick we just have to get amongst Sligo and we have to try and make sure that we keep possession of the ball when we have it and when we don’t have we have to work extremely hard to get it back.”
Derry will be without the services of, Stewart Greacen, Mark Farren, Kevin Deery and Rory Patterson through injury while Stephen McLaughlin is suspended after picking up 4 yellow cards and Simon Madden is also suspended after his sending of at the U.C.D Bowl last Friday evening.
