DERRY City manager Tiernan Lynch has praised former captain Patrick McEleney, who has joined his backroom team.
As exclusively released by The Irish News last month, McEleney made a sensational return to his hometown club in a coaching capacity and has now been confirmed as a player co-ordinator.
The 32-year-old, who has played three times for Ballymena United since joining Jim Ervin’s side during the January transfer window, has been involved in City’s pre-season preparations and Lynch has been thrilled by how things has been going.
McEleney has over 300 appearances in the League of Ireland for both City and Dundalk, winning everything there is to win, so his knowledge of players, managers and clubs of sides in the league is second to none.
“Patrick is obviously somebody who has a vast amount of experience in the League of Ireland, we’re coming into the League of Ireland for the first time and having ‘Fats’ in alongside us, to use his expertise, his knowledge,” said lynch.
“He’s an unbelievable football person, who has Derry CIty right at the very heart of everything we’re doing, so being able to lean on Fats and have him in and around what we’re doing on a daily basis we think will be invaluable for us.”
When asked if McEleney would be involved behind the scenes on a match night once the season gets underway, the Belfast man stated that’s something which they are looking into but insisted the Brandywell side will not interfere with the talented midfielder’s playing duties with the Braidmen, who he also praised.
“Hopefully all of the above in terms of being involved with us on match nights, but he has a playing contract with Ballymena and that’s something we don’t want to get in the way of,” he explained.
“Ballymena have been brilliant with us and Fats has been absolutely outstanding up to now.”
McEleney, who has admitted before that one day he would love to get on the coaching ladder once his playing days were over, has been Lynch’s ‘ears and eyes’ for everything League of Ireland and the role could change throughout the course of the season.
“His work ethic for the club, with the players and getting us a better understanding of teams, clubs, players, managers and away grounds, all those things that go with it, so it’s a working progress,” added Lynch.
“If it’s working brilliantly, great, if it’s not and we need to tweak things, then we’re open to all of that, there’s nothing in stone at this stage.
“Everything that can be looked at as time goes on will be looked at, especially as we develop this.”
The Derry boss, who replaced Ruaidhrí Higgins in November, believes he now has a good understanding of what type of squad he inherited after last week’s training camp in Fota Island in Cork.
“I think it would have been very unfair for me to come in and wield an axe without giving people the opportunity to come in and train and show what their capable of, so at this stage, we’re now a bit further on and we’ll just see what the next couple of weeks bring,” he confirmed.
“I thought the training camp was brilliant and they are an unbelievable bunch of boys.
“The boys’ work ethic and their hunger, desire and their willingness to learn and get better was great.
“It wasn’t an easy week for them, both physically and mentality, they had a lot of work to do on the pitch, to be fair there were three sessions a day from early morning and we’re also trying to introduce a whole new game model, so there was a lot to take in both on and off the pitch, but their attitudes were second to none and I can’t praise them enough.”
Yesterday, Derry continued their pre-season preparations with a 3-2 win at Sligo Rovers.
City gave debuts to Dom Thomas, Carl Winchester and Robbie Benson, but it was young striker Sean Patton who stole the headlines, netting a hat-trick at the Showgrounds.
