Derry City midfielder Adam O'Reilly pens new deal until 2026

Derry City’s ambitious plans both on and off the pitch was a major factor in Adam O’Reilly signing a new deal.

The midfielder, who has signed up until 2026, stated after one telephone call with manager Tiernan Lynch he wanted to remain on Foyleside.

The 23-year-old, who turned down other offers from clubs, feels the Brandywell club have the same ambition and drive, which he feels makes him tick.

“I took a little bit of time off to think about things, but the minute I spoke to Tiernan and heard his kind of ambition going forward, then it was a no brainer,” he insisted.

“A big thing for me is that I thrive off the ambition of what I’m going to do and what the club I’m going to be at is going to do and I think his plan that he’s looking to put in place got me really excited.

“I think after that phone call with Tiernan set my mind straight away and I wanted to be a Derry City player again.

“Obviously last season was very disappointing for everyone and for me personally I was absolutely gutted for about two weeks after that. To be honest I feel I owe a lot of people here a trophy and last season has left a burning desire to bring a trophy back to this club and that’s what I want to do.”

The Candy Stripes chief executive Sean Barrett, who admitted he took has a spring in his step since Lynch’s appointment, insisted the club are at advanced stage in securing a land to build a new state of the art training base.

“We are speaking to several parties and we’re at advanced talks about building a permanent basis, so from our point of view that’s brilliant,” he explained. “We obviously need something temporary until this happens, because it’s going to take 18 months to two years to get to this stage where the art facility is built.

“We’re going to have three pitches on it, floodlights, a 3G pitch, a gym, six changing rooms, areas up the stairs for a canteen facility, ice-bath, everything is going to be put in place and it’s going to be one of the best facilities in the North West, there’s no doubt about that.

“That’s all very exciting, but the here and now is that we need something right away and from the start of next year we’re going to have full-time catering and we have two or three separate options at the moment.

“We haven’t finalised anything yet but we are very, very close and it would be unfair to speculate on a location, but as I said we are very close to signing off on a piece of land to put our new facility in place.”

Barrett also concedes that the ex-Larne manager’s demands are close to being put into place.

“Tiernan has come in with a lot of new ideas and we’ve bought into it big-time,” he stated.

“We know what he has done at Larne and I went to their facility a number of months ago and it blew me away to be honest with you, so we need to be doing the same and we will be doing the same, because that’s how ambitious this club is.

“Tiernan and all his back-room staff, Andy Mitchell, Seamus (Lynch), they were all instrumental in getting Larne to where they are and that’s what excites me so much and why I was really attracted to get those guys here, purely and simply on the back of them ‘being there and done that’ and they can do it again here.

“Tiernan wants a complete home, he has a five point wishlist - Catering facility, gym, pitch, analysis room and offices. We’ve about four out of the five in one facility, but we are still looking to get all the boxes ticked in terms of all five points on his wishlist in the one facility and we’re still working very hard to try and achieve that.

“I feel there are really, really good times ahead and I’m delighted Adam will be a part of it.

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“To be honest it is embarrassing whenever I took Tiernan and the boys here, because the facilities in this city are disgraceful for soccer.

“They really, really are so poor and so many people have let us down and including ourselves whenever you look at the GAA facilities and look at the soccer facilities it’s night and day.

“I feel it’s something that we all need to look at and that’s what we’re going to do, because the facility that we’re going to bring is not just for the club, but for the wider people around the city and the North West, because we want to have a facility for our youngsters to go and train in, play football in and be healthier.”