Ciaran Coll set to leave Derry City to join Glentoran

Ciaran Coll is set to be the latest player to leave Derry City, having agreed a move to join Irish League side Glentoran.

It is believed that the 33-year-old turned down a new one-year deal at the Brandywell to join the Belfast club on a two-and-a-half year deal, making him the fourth player to leave Derry City in the past two weeks.

Coll, signed by Declan Devine in 2019, went on to make 170 appearances for the Candystripes, scoring three goals and providing nine assists over a six-year period with the club. Coll’s versatility in defence made him a valuable member of the former manager Ruaidhri Higgins’ squad, starting 22 games in all competitions this past season, before an injury against Sligo Rovers ended his season in October.

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St Johnston native Coll, who said back in September that he wished to finish his career at Derry City, has now agreed to reunite with former manager Devine, and team mate Shane McEleney, who has also joined the Belfast club in the past two weeks.

The departures from the Brandywell are coming thick and fast as it is also believed that Ruaidhri Higgins’ backroom staff of Paul Hegarty and Conor Loughrey have also left the club.

With McEleney brothers Shane and Patrick, as well as Colm Whelan and now Coll leaving the club, it leaves new manager Tiernan Lynch with plenty of work to do to rebuild the squad in the close season. Key on the agenda for the new boss are the futures of Brian Maher and Adam O’Reilly, both of whom are out of contract but still very much wanted by the club.

“We're well aware of who's out of contract, we're well aware of how important they are to this football club and we'll be doing everything in our powers to try and keep them,” Lynch said. “Our job is now to go and show them the vision of where we want to go, what we want to do, what we want to implement, and hopefully that will excite them enough to put pen to paper again.”

For Lynch, the most important thing is producing a team who want to give their all for the club.

“I think the biggest thing in football is obviously making sure you go out on that pitch with pride,” he said. “I know that they sold two and a half thousand season tickets last year. I came down to the Brandywell on numerous occasions and I saw the passion in the supporters and the one thing that you have to give them is give them that back and that's the minimum we'll accept here as I say is 100%.

“Our job is to tweak the team and develop the team, get the players enjoying what they're doing but first and foremost it's pride in the shirt.”

Tiernan and his brother Seamus are already hard at work to develop the team for next season, but it is possible that Coll’s departure won’t be the last from the Brandywell.

“We'll start getting around the players and lay out our vision of what we want to do, where we want to go,” he continued. “We have a very clear playing style and a very clear structure to what we do on the field and off the field, the levels of professionalism that we want to add to the club as I say both on the field and off the field and we hope the players will buy into that. We hope those players that are maybe thinking about moving on that we can change their mind.”

This is officially Lynch’s first experience in the League of Ireland, but having enjoyed tremendous success with Larne in the Irish League, he has belief in his ability to adapt to his new surroundings.

“Listen, it's always probably more beneficial if you've been involved in the league for a long period of time,” he stated. “I think all you've got to do is look at football right across the globe and how many managers come into the English Premiership from Portugal, Spain, now further afield.

“We've been following the League of Ireland for a long time, we go to as many matches as we can and it's something that we've no doubt we pick up very quickly, we have about eight or nine of the Derry City games last year that we'll spend the next three, four, five, six, seven days watching and getting a good handle on where the team's strengths were, where we feel we need to improve and I think it's something that we'll hopefully pick up very quickly.”