Dundalk must wait before they can really start to plan seriously

Dundalk should know soon enough if they are to be granted a First Division licence for next season. All depends on whether they can get through SCARP in a matter of weeks and come to some equitable arrangement with their creditors of repaying their debts.

I said last week that they must primarily agree a deal with revenue as to how they can pay off the 200,000 euro owed to them.

If revenue insists on getting their money now, then it's curtains for Dundalk. But I would be confident that the club owner will be able to get this issue sorted.

They must also pay all outstanding monies owed to Stephen O'Donnell, Wifred Zahibo and Louie Annesley before they get a licence.

Should they get out of SCARP within the month and get their licence for next season, then the club will also know how much of a points deduction, if any, they will face next season.

It's all speculation at the moment. Some say it could be as high as twenty points. Others say fifteen or ten. The very optimistic say that maybe there will be no deduction.

It's been a hectic time for owner John Temple and club CEO Peter Halpin as they try to clear some of the mess that they have been left with, in a matter of a couple of weeks. They have been able to get a new fire certificate for the YDC.

It means that it is now being fully utilized by the public of Dundalk. This is vital as it means that in the off-season the club can maintain a strong community connection with supporters and others.

The centre is also now yielding a financial return for the club for the first time in years. It's hard to understand how the current owner who is only at the helm for a few weeks and could get the YDC up and running, why previous owners going back years were never able to get this to happen to be used by the public.

Dundalk must wait to see if they will get a licence before they can really start to plan seriously for next season. Manager Jon Daly flew out of Dublin early on Saturday morning. He is hoping to get back into football in Scotland.

He has been away from his family for over four years. He will be glad to return home. If he can not get a job in football, then he will look for other employment in a different sector. Dundalk played 36 league games this season.

They won just five. They lost 20 games and drew 11. They could only manage to score just 23 goals and conceded an awful 50. The league table never lies. Therefore there is no doubt that they deserved to go down. But it need not have been that way.

Failure to get the right defence together was a major reason why Dundalk were relegated. They also failed to sign a striker who could even put some goals in the net. Playing Jamie Gullen as a striker just never worked out.

The defence was constantly leaking soft goals. To be fair to manager Jon Daly, his teams were usually only beaten by the odd goal.

The larger leakage of goals Dundalk were hit by came in the earlier part of the season. The loss of Zak Johnson and Zak Bradshaw at the end of June was pivotal to Dundalk going down.

These two players were key centre halves which if they had been put together at the back earlier could have ensured the Oriel Park side staying up. By the time this happened, Dundalk were already on a big slide.

They did ensure though that Dundalk did secure an amazing record of not conceding a goal at Oriel over a two-month period. Of the five games they won in the league, only one was away from home. Ironically it was against Jom Daly's old side Pats. Stephen Kenny was in charge at Inchicore when Dundalk beat them.

Dundalk had six managers over the season. Stephen O'Donnell took charge for the first eight games in the league. His record was abysmal. He failed to win a game.

He drew three and lost five games. Brian Gartland and Liam Burns were in charge for three games. They failed to win a game together. They drew two and lost one. Noel King was then brought in for four games. He was a permanent appointment.

It was seen as a bizarre signing as Noel had been out of the game a long time. He was in charge for four games. He had one win. He also managed to get two draws and one loss.

By the time Noel King had departed Dundalk, Brian Gartland was also gone. Liam Burns stood in for one game following King's departure and won a game.

Jon Daly came in for the last 19 games in mid-summer. He could only manage three wins and five draws. He lost 12 league games. His win percentage was just 16 percent.

Dundalk recruited badly before the start of the season. They failed to get a strike force that could score. The defence was very poor until the two Zak's got regular places. There was a serious goalkeeping problem right from the start.

George Shelvey departed the club early following an incident in the first Louth Derby of the season Ross Munro just never inspired confidence in goals, although he did improve towards the end of the season.

Felix Goddard was brought in during the summer. That signing just never worked out as he conceded goals regularly. Dundalk lost games they should have won because of him, academy keeper Sean Molloy was top-class. He did not concede a single goal in two games.

John Mountney who arrived at Dundalk in 2012 was very emotional in recent interviews about Dundalk's fall from grace. He did spend a year with Pat's when Stephen O'Donnell was manager. He arrived back at Oriel in 2022 when O'Donnell made a surprise return to Oriel as manager in place of Vinny Perth.

John experienced nearly two full seasons without playing as a result of an injury. But Stephen O'Donnell kept faith in John that he would be fit to return to full fitness. This he did in 2024 and he was magnificent.

He had attempted several comebacks. John told the Irish Independent that errors in recruitment and the loss of Mark Connolly to Derry in June 2023 and Pat Hoban also to Derry in January 2024 were clear signs that things were going in the wrong direction.

John says that the 2024 season was heartbreaking. He saw the club being nearly relegated in 2012. Then it won everything and dominated Irish soccer for years. And to see the club being relegated in 2024 showed that nothing had changed.

Mountney believes that Stephen O'Donnell should not have been sacked in the season just gone. He believes that Brian Ainscough made a mistake. John says it was also a mistake to let Pat Hoban go.

But I can not understand John's reasoning behind this statement. Stephen O'Donnell did not want Pat Hoban to stay. He told him exactly 12 months ago that he could leave.

Brian Ainscough said when he arrived at Oriel, it was up to the manager whether Hoban stayed or departed. He left at the end of January. I believe Ainscough should have overruled his manager and kept Hoban.

John says that Dundalk failed to attract the right players. He said he did not know if it was the pitch or the budget. He said that ultimately the club has had to cross the water into the unknown.

Mountney says that there was a massive influx of players who came into the club. But they just did not have the quality to keep the club up this season. John is right about this. Stephen O'Donnell brought in only one Irish player this season.

That player was not able to gain a place on the first team except for the past few weeks as he suffered a lot from injury. Most of the players brought in were just not good enough.

Some were also brought in on loan. This was a disaster for the club as they lost the two key players who could have kept them up as they returned to their clubs in June.

O'Donnell also made a mistake by not bringing goalkeeper Nathan Shepperd back. It was a serious error that would see the Dundalk defence give away needless goals throughout the season.

Thus without a reliable keeper apart from Sean Molloy and a very uncertain defence Dundalk were always on the road to Division One. The recruitment saw 9 players leave the club at the end of the June window nine more were brought in by Jon Daly.

These players included some who even rarely played for the first team. I do not blame Jon Daly for the June recruitment. He had only joined the club.

But again the fact that he had to go cross-channel to recruit showed that the club were failing to attract the type of players that were needed to keep the club up, Drogheda were rock bottom at the end of June, five points behind Dundalk.

But they signed wisely. So good were their signings, they were able to get to the cup final. The way they strengthened the team saw them stand out as the second most consistent team in the league for the first eight games since the end of June.

The signing of Luke Dennison as keeper on loan from Bohemians was a great move. He was immense. Drogheda of course must play the promotion relegation playoff game as well four days after next week's FAI Cup Final.

Why did Dundalk not move for Dennison? One does not know. Felix Goddard was not the right signing. He was very poor. Andy Boyle and John Mountney were immense for Dundalk throughout the season.

Daryl Horgan and Robbie Benson also played their part to help Dundalk. Daryl and Robbie are both doing their coaching badges.

Both would be good candidates for management next season. Liam Burns is certainly one man the club must do their best to keep. He is a top-class coach. Ominously he would not confirm to me that he would be staying on next season.

Jon Daly did of course make mistakes. His signing of goalkeeper Felix Goddard was a serious mistake. His failure to sign Nathan Shepperd in the window was an even bigger mistake.

His decision to persist with Munro and Goddard cost Dundalk dearly. Had he even put Peter Cherrie in the goals, it would have stabilised the side's defence and given them the stability at the back that they needed.

In an interview with myself, John Mountney said that the side very often came out on the wrong side of a result by a short margin.

''When Stephen O'Donnell was in charge of the side at the start of the season, the mindset was to move up the table this season from last year's position. But things went downhill and downhill from the start. It just became a real-life nightmare.

Behind the scenes, players were coming and going. In the end, you end up where you end up in the table at the finish of the season. The league table never lies. Yes, relegation is very hard to take, But the fact is we really lost too many games''.

John says that what was going on off the pitch was hard for the younger players in particular. ''They were renting their accommodation. They were told they could be out of their homes because of the financial crisis that hit the club.

To face that and then be expected to turn up for training did put them under enormous pressure. For lads coming up and saying they did not know if they would have a place to stay increased the pressure.

These things should never have happened at a club like Dundalk which always held high standards. Seeing the way things were behind the scenes this season was so disheartening.

We did as players try to put all of those things aside and just concentrate on the things we faced on the pitch. But we just did not have enough to get us over the line.

That is the truth. We just tried to keep things as simple as possible. But with all that was going on behind the scenes and with a very young squad, of course, that was going to play on the players minds''.

''The most difficult thing I found was putting the captain's armband on and trying to keep the club up. I took this very personally. Sadly I just was not able to do it. Two weeks on from being relegated, I am still gutted.

Trying to accept that there was so much going on behind the scenes and out of our control was also so difficult. Everybody put in the effort to stay up. But maybe it was because we did not have enough quality on the side to do so.

We are all waiting to find out what the future holds for the club'' John was responding to my question if issues were resolved and the club gets a licence will he stay.

''I have players coming to me asking what was happening at Oriel next year and who could they talk to. Look I do not have the answers for anyone.

Until that side of it is sorted out and there is a manager appointed, then me staying is not even a conversation that can even be discussed.''

''I am out of contract for next season. There are nine players in contract and a few on retainer letters. Even those lads are waiting to see. A new manager has to come in and see the situation for himself and see what kind of budget he will be given.

I just hope that everything going on behind the scenes at the club can be tidied up and that it can be stabilised. John Temple has come in. We are all very grateful that he has come in.

He has taken over the club when it was on its hands and knees. He has kept things going and has seen the season out. Full credit to the new owner. I just hope that going forward the club can be stabilised. We all know that behind the scenes there is a lot of debt to be tidied up''.

I also spoke to Dundalk FM's John Murphy to get his take on what has been a terrible year for the club. ''At the beginning of the season, we never thought it was going to be like this.

We started the campaign with a very good result of 1-1 against Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght. We all thought it was the start of something good.

But as the early part of the season progressed and we were not getting any wins, it dawned on us that maybe things were not going to be as optimistic as we thought.''

After eight games manager Stephen O'Donnell left. We had two or three managers in after that. It was one of those up and down seasons that you could never point your finger at much.

Things were happening all over the place, that you knew were not right for the club. The first big mistake was letting our keeper Shepperd go. We signed four goalkeepers trying to get someone like him it never worked.

We let a goalscorer who netted 160 goals for Dundalk in his time here walk out the door. We let him go to Derry City with a year left on his contract. Shepperd and Hoban were the spine of your team.

I am only going over old ground here. We signed players from England and Scotland. You are never going to have them for too long. You will only have many of them until the end of June.

We lost the two Zak's then. It was a disaster. Jon Daly had to come in after Noel King and the departure of the two Zak's. He was really given an impossible task.

''I am not saying we would have won the league. But we would never have ended up being relegated if certain players had been kept.

Loosing the two Zak's was like building a house with a good foundation and then in July taking the foundations away.'' The loan policy by Dundalk was used by Stephen O'Donnell and others within Oriel for the third year in a row.

It just simply never worked. John Murphy says supporters are dependent on those within the club to make the right decisions. ''This year those in charge of recruitment should have known that they had been caught out badly in the previous two years on the loan policy used.

They should have decided that they were not going to get caught out again this year. Those in charge of recruitment at Oriel should have ensured that if they were taking players on loan they would at least get the full season out of them.

Dundalk did not get the full service from the loan players who were good as they left in July. They came here on good wages. The loan club usually pays three-quarters of their wages. The loan club pays the other quarter''.

We got great value out of the two Zak's. Suddenly they were gone. Then we lost Archie Davies, the best right fullback in the league. What do we do? He had five months of his contract to go.

We let him go at the end of July when he was so badly needed. Look at us now. I mean no disrespect to the current squad. But if you look at a squad with the two Zak's, Nathan Shepherd, Pat Hoban and Archie Davies, we would have had a formidable team. Yes, the two Zak's were on loan until the end of June.

But we could have had Shepperd and Hoban and kept Davies until the end of the season. These three players could have ensured us premier division safety.''

''We were always lucky down through the years that helped build up the club. You had Alan Fox, Jim McLaughlin and Turlough O'Connor. You also had Dermot Keely and then Stephen Kenny.

What years we had? We are still living those years. We are still talking about them. Those years are all gone, all gone. Why, Because of bad management somewhere along the line''.

''Letting Archie Davies go was a major mistake Letting the two Zak's go were also big mistakes. You just could not go to the subs bench and replace these players, hoping they would be of equal ability.

You have to be very careful using loan players. Usually, they are here to improve their own abilities. What use was that to losing them at such a key part of the season? We had eight clean sheets for eight games when they were here.

What does that show you? If you go back and look at the silly goals we gave away since they left, it has put us in the position where we are today.

And of course, we could not put the ball in the net at the other end because we let Pat Hoban go 23 goals for 36 games is a dreadful tally. That is where the weaknesses were. Jon Daly's hands were tied.

Where do you go looking for good players at that time of the year? I think Jon Daly walked in with a blindfold on him. This was because he only saw what the real problems were when it was taken from him. Problems cropped up for him everywhere. His hands were tied as he could not get any quality players in''.

''You and I know the body language of a manager. He always comes across that he would do well with the right type of player. I think his hands are tied. Because if you look at our displays, we play with about six or seven players and there are always three or four of them missing.''

John pointed to a comment made by one of the players on the night Dundalk were relegated. The player said that a few of the players tried their best during the season and made a good contribution.

There were others he said that did not do so.''This is where the foundation was taken out of us. We had nobody to replace the key players we lost. That's where the poor results come from.

You can not go out and play with six or seven players and carry three or four if you want to win. You could always look at the six or seven players during the season who would perform. You also knew the others who would not. That's why we were left with the mess we were left with on the pitch this season''.

''The supporters were marvellous the night we were relegated. The local media were up in the press box. You and me and the rest of the local lads had tears in our eyes as we never thought we would see another relegation so soon after being promoted back to the Premier Division just 18 years ago.

I am 86 years of age. I never thought I would see a Dundalk team being relegated again in my lifetime. The First Division is going to be so hard to get out of.

People say to me, we will be back after a year. No such thing. It took eight long hard seasons to return to the Premier Division last time out.''.

"First of all, we have to have a new committee running the club if we do get a licence. Then we must get a new manager and find out what our budget is going to be. The carrot for any good player to come to a club in Europe.

How are we going to attract any good players? There is no Europe from the First Division. No good players want to play in the First division because it gets no publicity in the national media. Dundalk will be looking to the local media for all of their publicity.''.

TJ Molloy became the youngest-ever player to play for Dundalk against Drogheda in the last league game of the season.TJ recently scored three goals in three games in the Victory Shield International competition in Scotland.

He came on as a sub late in the second half at Weavers Park on Friday night. The game finished scoreless. Youngster Luke Mulligan also played as a sub in the second half for Dundalk.

Outgoing boss Jon Daly says Dundalk have some really good talent in the academy. Daly says the club must sign some of the top academy players as soon as possible in order to prevent other clubs from moving in for them.

He says that he hopes Dundalk use the young players along with the academy players in the First Division next season. He has warned against a policy of just using an all-youth team.

He said there must be experienced players in the team if the club wants to attempt to make a speedy return to the Premier Division.

While Jon looks out for a new managerial job in Scotland he got some good news on Friday. He will be working as a consultant for Dundalk CEO Peter Halpin's football agency in the Scottish region.

Shelbourne won the league on Friday night with the most dramatic 1-0 win over Derry City at the Brandywell Stadium. They got their priceless goal six minutes from the end.

Had they failed to get the win, Shamrock Rovers would have won 5 titles in a row. Sean Gannon became the most successful ever league player when he won his 11th title with Shelburne on Friday.

He won five titles with Dundalk. One each with Pats and Shelbourne and four with Shamrock Rovers. Dundalk made a serious mistake when they let him go.

Richie Towell is reported to be joining up with Stephen Kenny at Pats next season. Ryan O'Kane is out of contract with Dundalk. The youngster is being strongly linked to champions Shelbourne.

Have a great week. Please look after each other and be careful out there.