Daly: I’m sure Dundalk FC will be back

Jon Daly admits his time as Dundalk FC manager is coming to an end – but hopes The Lilywhites can “come back stronger” after a 2-0 defeat at home to Derry City on Friday night confirmed their relegation from the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division.

Following 16 consecutive seasons in the League of Ireland’s top tier, The Lilywhites will drop into the First Division as soon as they play out their remaining two fixtures.

Emotional scenes came after the full-time whistle at Oriel Park as the curtain came down on Dundalk’s top-flight status, with supporters staying back to offer encouragement.

“It’s hugely disappointing,” said Daly. “I’m gutted for the players, gutted for the fans. The players, the position that they’re in, I don’t think they’ve ever once had games where they’ve downed tools.

“If the league table was given on hard work and effort, they’d be right near the very top, but unfortunately in football you need to bring quality as well.

“Tonight, it’s the story of the season. Prior to me coming in, since I’ve come in, it’s converting chances and taking chances. We’ve never been in a game, since I’ve come, that we haven’t created chances, we’ve just failed to take them.

“There was some big opportunities for us again tonight and unfortunately everything was straight down Brian Maher’s throat and quite comfortable for him to save. We have to be better in them moments and ultimately that’s cost us over the piece.”

He added: “We get relegated, we go down and the club have to try and get themselves back. It’s hugely disappointing. You look at the support at the end, they were extremely grateful for what they’ve seen on the pitch and supportive of the players.

“The bottom line is now they need to bounce back and they need to have a plan in place to come back stronger and better than ever and get themselves back to where they have been and where they want to go, but they need to put structures in place to make that happen.”

Daly suggested he won’t be leading Dundalk into the First Division next season, while the 41-year-old Dubliner, who entered the Oriel hotseat in May, reiterated that he likely would not have taken the job had he known of the club’s ongoing financial turmoil.

“That’s a fair reflection,” he replied when asked if he would be parting ways. “My own personal point of view, I’ve come up to four years now away from my family.

“There was talk previously about potentially them coming over and getting them across (from Scotland) and seeing how it went.

“With everything that’s gone on in the background in the last number of months, it would be very unfair of me to ask my family to uproot and move country and come over for me. I have to put my family first and that’s what my plan will be.”

He continued: “If I had a brutal, honest assessment of where the club was at, I would’ve come back with my eyes open and in a better position to understand what it was that I was coming into.

“I was told certain things that didn’t come to fruition that made my job a little bit more difficult, but I’m not going to make that an excuse for us getting relegated.

“I don’t think we’ve been outclassed or we’ve been outplayed in many games. It’s been little lapses of concentration defensively or lack of quality in that final action in front of goal.

“To be fair to the players, lapses of concentration, they’ve got a lot on their minds with everything going on off the pitch. There’s been certain games where they’ve not been paid prior to going into it and they might have mortgage payments coming out or whatever.

“That is extremely difficult to deal with. It’s never something I’ve dealt with myself as a player, so I can’t put myself in their shoes. I can put myself in their shoes in terms of tonight.

“I’ve been relegated as a player and it is a horrible feeling, but you need to try and harness that emotion and that feeling and make sure that it doesn’t happen you again going forward.

“My plan wasn’t to come in and rip a squad apart and try and build a new squad mid-season. I thought, coming in, I’d add maybe three players, four players, but you lose the bones of nine or 10 players, which is huge and it makes it extremely difficult.

“It’s a difficult one, but as I said, I’m sure the club will be back. When? Who knows. I think it’s important, as I said, that the structures off the pitch are put in place to really help them get back as quick as possible.”