Derry midfielder Whyte not interested in other teams' results

Gavin Whyte believes that Derry City have to ignore the league table and just concentrate on themselves ahead of a challenging weekend in Dublin, starting with a trip to Tolka Park tomorrow.

The Brandywell men travel to champions Shelbourne tonight (Friday) and currently sit a massive 14 points behind leaders Shamrock Rovers, albeit with two games in hand, but Whyte feels the Foylesiders need to worry about themselves and look to end a poor run of form.

Derry, who have only picked up two points from their last four games and he knows this Friday evening’s contest against Damien Duff’s side is going to be a tough test to end their dip in form.

“At the end of the day we need to concentrate on ourselves, it doesn’t matter if they’re 11, 15 or 20 points ahead of us, we just need to do what we need to do,” he insisted.

“Yes it is a big gap, but if you put a run together in this league, say, three or four games in a row, you’ll end up there yourself, so as I said we just have to concentrate on ourselves at the minute.

“We need to go on a run again, we’ve got the squad and we’ve got the players and the management to go and do that, but it’s up to us to go out and do it on the pitch."

The champions are on a high after their victory against St. Patrick's Athletic on Monday night, a win which saw them overtake Derry City into sixth place. The Candystripes memorably lost 3-1 at Tolka Park on the opening day of the season, but hit back against Shels at the Brandywell in May, winning 2-0.

“We’ve a tough game at Shelbourne, but as a cliche goes, every game is tough, but it’s crucial in the second half of the season, so we really need to get going again," Whyte continued.

“We all need to work hard and we need to change little things that we’re not doing so well at, we’re playing some good stuff. We need to be scoring more goals.”

The ex-Cardiff City man has struggled to find his best form for Derry, but he has the belief that he along with the squad can turn things around.

“It’s probably not the start that I’ve hoped for, but I’m confident that I can go out there and do what I can do. I haven’t really got the goals or anything, but I just need to keep going and hopefully it comes,” he explained.

“We do have the belief to get things going, of course we do, but it’s also up to us, it’s up to us in training every day to do that and the manager gives us belief to go out and play, obviously we haven’t done it the past couple of weeks.

“We know it’s going to be tough to get a run going, but we’re going to need to do it.”

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The 29-year-old was annoyed that Tiernan Lynch’s side were unable to defeat Galway United last week but he concedes the squad need to keep their head up and go again at Tolka Park.

“It was very frustrating because I felt we did enough to win the game, especially in the first half,” he added.

“Listen, it’s one of those nights, that they do what they do and they make it hard for you, but listen we dust ourselves down, we have to go again and we have to keep our heads up, it’s as simple as that.”

The talented winger was disappointed that he didn’t get himself on the scoresheet against John Caulfield’s men, especially in the first half when he was unable to turn home Sam Todd’s cross.

“I thought if Mickey (Duffy) doesn’t touch it, I’ll be there to tap it in, but I unfortunately couldn’t get near the ball,” he added.

“To be fair Mickey in that situation has to touch it, so listen there’s nothing you can do, he got a touch and it was just too far away from me.”