Yoga at Derry City as Kenny sacrifices players for professionalism

New Derry City manager Kenny Shiels has cut down his budget for playing staff in a bid to make the Brandywell club a more professional outfit.

While the Candy Stripes boss is still short of playing staff, he has rerouted some of his budget into making sure the club have had the best of everything in their preparation for the 2016 League of Ireland season.

From dieticians to performance analysts, every detail has been scrutinised in City’s pre-season so far and Shiels (pictured) insisted that it is essential that the players and club begin to feel more professional.

“The players are training really hard,” he said.

“They are training to their maximum every day.

“The programme involves strength and conditioning, injury prevention, massages at the right time, which Raymond McGuinness is doing.

“We also have yoga on a Sunday which is brilliant, and they also have their GPS vests for monitoring their fitness and how much they do in a training session.

“There’s total 100% professionalism about the place and everyone is thriving on it.

“It’s all modern, innovative workings of a football club.

“It may take a couple of players off the budget but I think it’s essential that we are professional.”

While City’s squad is certainly in need of reinforcement, one benefit of this rigid pre-season programme is injury prevention, which, Shiels hopes, will help make the squad a more efficient outfit in the season ahead.

The City boss admitted that while the demands placed on the players are significant, the programmes are designed to help them realise their potential. “We want the players to feel professional so that they can act professional and we can become better at what we do,” he explained.

“It’s quite a significant demand on people. It puts a big demand on people and then you find out about your players; who’s up for the challenge to put in the extra hours and the extra work.

“That is what professionalism does; you have to move out of your comfort zone and you have to be prepared to make sacrifices and that’s the way we are.”

Shiels concluded: “We’re doing that collectively to become a proper team.”