Derry City’s Adam O’Reilly is excited by the club’s future and didn’t need much persuading to sign a new two-year deal.
City are also thought to be close to announcing a new deal for goalkeeper Brian Maher, who is believed to have agreed a new long-term deal, while they are also thought to continue talks with Will Patching and Northern Ireland internationals Shane Ferguson and Gavin Whyte.
As for O’Reilly, the ex-St Patrick’s Athletic man is signed up until 2026 and conceded after talks with new boss Tiernan Lynch his mind was made up.
“I took a little bit of time off to think about things, but the minute I spoke to Tiernan and heard his kind of ambition going forward, then it was a no-brainer,” stated the Cork native.
“A big thing for me is that I thrive off the ambition of what I’m going to do and what the club I’m going to be at is going to do and I think his plan that he’s looking to put in place got me really excited.
“I think after that phone call with Tiernan set my mind straight away and I wanted to be a Derry City player again.”
The 23-year-old explained that last season’s disappointing campaign is something which is driving him to bring some silverware to the Foylesiders.
“Obviously last season was very disappointing for everyone and for me personally, I was absolutely gutted for about two weeks after that,” he added.
“To be honest I feel I owe a lot of people here a trophy and last season has left a burning desire to bring a trophy back to this club and that’s what I want to do.”
The Brandywell men’s chief executive Sean Barrett was thrilled that the midfielder has signed a new deal to remain at the club.
“There has been no let-up in the efforts to ensure we have a squad capable of competing for trophies next season and Adam is a big part of that,” he confirmed.
“He’s a player we were keen to keep and I know Derry fans will be happy to see him commit to the club.
“The management, staff and board here are continuing to work tirelessly and I would be hopeful that there will be more positive developments in the coming days and weeks.”
Barrett also explained the club is at an advanced stage in securing land to build a new state-of-the-art training base.
“We are speaking to several parties and we’re at advanced talks about building a permanent basis, so from our point of view that’s brilliant,” insisted Barrett.
“We obviously need something temporary until this happens, because it’s going to take 18 months to two years for this state-of-the-art facility is built.
“We’re going to have three pitches on it, floodlights, a 3G pitch, a gym, six changing rooms, areas up the stairs for a canteen facility, ice-bath, everything is going to be put in place and it’s going to be one of the best facilities in the North West, there’s no doubt about that.
“That’s all very exciting, but the here and now is that we need something right away and from the start of next year we’re going to have full-time catering and we have two or three separate options at the moment.
“We haven’t finalised anything yet but we are very, very close and it would be unfair to speculate on a location, but as I said we are very close to signing off on a piece of land to put our new facility in place.”
