Sean Patton hits a hat trick, but concerns over Danny Mullen after Derry City win at Sligo Rovers

Derry City striker Danny Mullen looks set to miss next month’s league opener at champions Shelbourne, after suffering an ankle injury, during Tuesday’s friendly win at Sligo Rovers.

The 29-year-old front man picked up the problem in the first half and left the Sligo Showgrounds walking with crutches and a medically protective boot on his right foot. Mullen is thought to have a scan on the issue when the full extent of the problem will be confirmed.

The man who replaced the Scottish striker was teenager Sean Patton and he produced a tremendous performance and helped himself to a match winning hat-trick, at the Showgrounds.

Trailing 1-0 to Owen Elding’s early goal, Michael Duffy saw his 15th minute penalty saved by Conor Walsh, before Patton levelled things; however youngster Elding netted his second to give Rovers the lead at the break, but it was the Donegal man who stole the show after the break, firing home a brace, to seal the 3-2 win.
Lynch was thrilled by Patton’s performance and has been impressed by the 18-year-old throughout pre-season.

“Sean Patton has been absolutely superb in pre-season and I think that’s his fifth or sixth goal,” he stated.

“The kid has been really impressive, he’s working really hard, has a wee eye for goal and he wants to score goals, which is key to any centre-forward.”
The Belfast native conceded he told his players at the break to raise their level of performance and he was pleased with their second half showing.

“I thought there was a big difference from our first half performance to our second half performance,” he explained.

“The first half I thought we were a wee bit lethargic and very much treated it like a pre-season game and we had a little bit of a conversation about it at half-time, in terms of standards and everything that goes with that and I felt we were very different in the second half and more like ourselves.”
Lynch gave trio Carl Winchester, Robbie Benson and Dom Thomas their debuts for the club, while Shane Ferguson played 90 minutes and fellow new recruits Gavin Whyte and Liam Boyce also featured.
Left winger Thomas and striker Boyce looked a threat and while the Derry boss was pleased, he knows there’s a lot more to come from his squad.

“Listen, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of talent in this team,” he explained. “It’s probably going to take us a little bit of time to get us all gelled in.

“I think the big thing is that to go where we want to go you have to have people who want to take your place and our capability of taking your place and I think today we showed we now have people who can come off the bench and make a difference.

“If people aren’t doing the things that they need to be doing on the pitch then you just have the same ability of player to replace them.

“People will probably talk about the players that we’ve brought in and their age, we get all that and we understand that, but it’s the quality that we see and we’ll get all of them where we want them to go as far as fitness is concerned.

“As I’ve said it’s not an overnight thing and we’re aware of that but we feel that we’ve got a squad now where we can chop and change if necessary and rotate as necessary, as long as we keep them all fit.”