Ruaidhri Higgins in no rush to replace Alan Reynolds

Ruaidhri Higgins insists he is in no rush to appoint a new number two at Derry City following the departure of Alan Reynolds this week.

With games against Drogheda United and Bohemians at the Brandywell this weekend, Higgins has little time to consider a replacement for Reynolds, who returned to Waterford this week, where he will serve as Keith Long’s assistant manager.

While Higgins could never have envisioned losing Reynolds so soon, it is just another bump in the road in an already tumultuous season, and the immediate priority has to be the two homes games in four days.

“It's hard to put too much thought into it at the minute because there’s so much going on,” he said. “We have a game on Friday, we have a game on Monday and another one next Friday, so I’m going to have to think about it over a gradual period of time.

“I didn’t have an assistant manager really in my first season, and it took 8, 9 or 20 months to appoint one. That was me only starting out in management, so if I didn’t rush into it then, I’m not going to rush into it now.

“I’m more experienced now than I was in April 2021. People might say ‘You need this or you need that’, but I’ll be the one to decide. I know what the club needs, I know what the players need and I know what I need so I won’t rush into it, I’ll take my time and make sure that it is the right one, because it is an important role.

“We do have really good staff here at the minute and we work closely together. We have the same thought processes. We will bring someone in but I won’t be rushing into it.”

Derry City remain unbeaten after seven games this season, but they now face a Drogheda side with a habit of taking points off the bigger teams in the Premier Division.

Last season, Kevin Doherty’s team took a grand total of 19 points off the top three of Shamrock Rovers, Derry City and Dundalk, and have already taken points from the champions this season. Higgins knows just what to expect, especially after three successive draws against tomorrow night’s opponents. 

“Drogheda took six points off us last year and out of the top three last year they took a lot of points so they are set up well against the top teams,” he acknowledged.

“Four out of the last five against them have been draws so if we win on Friday night, we’re going to have to have earned it.

“Those six points we dropped against them are a big tally so we need to put that right and we need to be winning games. When you reflect, and I don’t like looking back, but the amount of draws we had last year where we dominated the games and didn’t finish teams off was disappointing so we can’t get into that habit again. We need to be really ruthless, and I know there’s going to be a night when we really hit it off and hopefully that’s on Friday.”

O’Reilly returns

City will be boosted by the return of midfielder Adam O’Reilly this week after six weeks out with injury. O’Reilly played in the President’s Cup win over Shamrock Rovers ad on the opening day at St. Patrick’s Athletic, but has been side-lined since.

“Adam has trained all week,2 Higgins stated. “He’s done a lot of work over the last few weeks with Michael and Kevin. You seen the condition McJannet came back in last week; he was absolutely brilliant on a big heavy pitch. To come through the way he did was brilliant, ad that’s because of all the work he’s done in the last few weeks.

“Adam will be the same. He comes back into the squad for Friday of everything goes smoothly between now and then. There are a couple who are just a small bit behind and hopefully they are not too far away.”