Derry City in pre-season action at Coleraine tonight

Derry City travel to Coleraine tonight for a pre-season friendly against the Bannsiders at the Showgrounds (kick off 7.45pm).

With the opening day of the new Airtricity Premier Division kicking off against Finn Harps in Ballybofey on 4 March, City boss Kenny Shiels (pictured) has conceded his Candy Stripes side are unlikely to be propery prepared for the Finn Park clash.

The disruption to City’s schedule is now taking its toll and Shiels has admitted he and his players are becoming increasingly frustrated.

The cancellation of last Friday’s game against Glentoran due to a waterlogged Oval pitch was the third pre-season game called off.

“It’s not good for morale because it just kills us,” Shiels said. “That’s three pre-season fixtures we’ve had called off. We’re preparing for a game so we try not to put the players through too much the day before the game.

“We rest the players in preparation for the game and we also plan to rest the players so it kills two days.

“We’ve lost three fixtures now so multiply that schedule by three and you can see that it’s been really detrimental to our pre-season.

“We probably are a bit behind which is the annoyance of the whole thing.”