Derry City's Rory Patterson out injured for three weeks

Rory Patterson’s injury at Bohemians may not be as bad as first feared, Kenny Shiels has revealed.

City’s top hitman lasted less than a half hour of Friday night’s League of Ireland opener before hobbling off to be replaced by two-goal hero Nathan Boyle.

Initial impressions were that Patterson had damaged his knee ligaments and faced a long spell on the sidelines, but after tests at the weekend, it looks like the striker could be back in a few weeks.

“Michael hasn’t given me any news one ay or another. He has a wee bit of swelling so he has to wait and see but Michael doesn’t seem that negative about it. Rory himself thinks he’s fine and it’s not too bad. Obviously it’s still a wee bit sore. The knee is not something that you can predict straight away unless it’s a cruciate but there’s still stability in the knee and that’s a good sign.”

“Michael hasn’t given me any news one ay or another. He has a wee bit of swelling so he has to wait and see but Michael doesn’t seem that negative about it. Rory himself thinks he’s fine and it’s not too bad. Obviously it’s still a wee bit sore. The knee is not something that you can predict straight away unless it’s a cruciate but there’s still stability in the knee and that’s a good sign.

“Limerick are a good team and I’ve said that all along,” he said. “The investments they’ve made is to get into Europe and they are getting their just rewards because of that investment. They are the best team in the league at the minute, and that’s what I said. There’s no one that can touch them and we just want to try and get something from next week’s game against them. It’s going to be very tough.”