Derry's Michael Duffy ready for the champions

Galliagh native Michael Duffy feels facing champions Shelbourne at a packed Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium tomorrow night is something everyone is excited about.

The Foylesiders lost 3-1 at Tolka Park on the opening night, but Duffy believes the City squad are in a much better place now going into Friday evening’s encounter and he also feels that Damien Duff’s side, like most teams in the Premier Division seem to be a bit more expansive in their play.

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“We know how important the game is, everyone will be buzzing for it,” he insisted. “All the fans will be buzzing for it. A packed out Brandywell playing the champions, it's set up for a cracker.

“We’re in good spirits and all the boys are looking forward to the game.

“The first match of the season it was a very disappointing night for us that night, with the goals we gave away and stuff, but it just wasn’t a good performance from us, but I feel we’re in a better place at the minute.”

A lot has happened since that opening night at Tolka, and while a new-look Derry City are still finding their feet to some extent, Damien Duff's champions are as stubborn and resilient as ever.

“It took us a while to gel and obviously a lot of new players, who were also new to the league, but I think we’ve gradually got a lot better since then, so we’re in a much better place going into Friday night’s game,” Duffy continued.

“Shels seem a wee bit more expansive, but I think they’ve also had a couple of injuries in defence. I think they went the full season last year without any injuries; they sort of kept the same back four for the majority of last year, but this season I think they’ve had to make a few changes in their team.

“To be fair they’ve also got a few new players as well and they seem to be very good, so there has been a lot of changes for most of the teams this season and I feel that a lot of teams are playing a bit different as well.”

The 30-year-old has netted five goals in Derry’s opening 12 league games, but he hasn’t scored in their last four matches, something which he wants to change against the Dubliners.

“I’ve still had a few chances in the last few games and I always been a bit disappointed whenever I miss chances and it annoys me after games, so I’ll be doing everything I can to get back involved in the goals and assists, hopefully starting on Friday, but the main thing is the three points,” he explained.

“Look, I obviously want to get goals and assists, but as I said winning matches is more important, but in saying that I want to get back involved when it comes to goals and assists.”

After successive wins against Galway United and Sligo Rovers, City produced a poor performance at Waterford, falling to a deserved 2-1 defeat. Duffy knows the team has to become more consistent.

“We had two brilliant results going into the Waterford game, we had a brilliant performance at Galway, followed that up with a good home performance against Sligo and then that performance down in Waterford just wasn’t good enough really from us,” he continued.

“It was obviously disappointing, but look we’ve three games in a week again, so we have a chance to put that result and performance at Waterford right when during the week ahead.

“We have to go into the Shels game positive and we have to think about the good things that we’ve been doing over the past few weeks.”

Tiernan Lynch’s side conceded two terrible goals at Waterford last week, but the former Dundalk insists the goals they are conceding is everyone’s fault and not just the defence and goalkeeper Brian Maher.

“Everyone in the squad wants to keep clean-sheets, it starts with us up front, making sure we press well and defend from the front,” he added.

“We were off it as well in Waterford, it wasn’t just the defence and stuff, it was everyone and we know that and we’ll be making sure we don’t do that on Friday.”