Kenny confident of progress despite Towell’s departure
Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny is confident his team can withstand the loss of Richie Towell, who signed for Championship leaders Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday.
Towell scored a record 29 goals for Dundalk in their double winning season but Kenny believes that his squad is still packed with enough quality to mount a bid for a third league title on the trot, alongside a run in Europe.
“It has been talked about for a few weeks now but from my point of view, it’s obviously disappointing that Richie’s gone,” Kenny told The Dundalk Democrat on Monday evening.
“One of our objectives next year is to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League. The way to do that is to keep your best players so we are obviously disappointed to lose Richie because we want to remain successful.
“However, as a realist, the financial terms and opportunity offered by Brighton is something we can’t compete with,” he added.
“Richie caught the imagination of everybody at Dundalk. Kids celebrated goals like him, wanted their hair cut like him. He was a unique character. We wish him well with Brighton but we have to move on ourselves.”
Dundalk fans are wondering who will replace the 24-year-old but Kenny said he was more than happy with the current crop of midfielders at his disposal.
“Richie did brilliant for us and everybody is going to ask how do we replace him but we have four excellent midfielders still at the club and we will be adding to that.
“Stephen O’Donnell is an outstanding player, a classic midfielder and we have Chris Shields, a formidable warrior. John Mountney is able to play centrally and then, of course, we have Ronan Finn.
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“Ronan is an exceptional player. He had a burst of goals at the end of last season. Richie is in quite a similar position now to where Ronan was a few seasons ago when Burnley, who were top of the Championship, wanted to sign him but wouldn’t pay the €100,000 fee to Shamrock Rovers.”
Towell’s move puts an end to weeks of speculation about his future and Kenny said that he could now focus on bringing in new additions.
“I wouldn’t say I’m relieved because we wanted to keep Richie but it does give us a bit of clarity,” he said.
“When Patrick Hoban left last year people were saying it was a devastating loss and the challenge to improve when you’ve lost your most influential player is tough but it’s something we must rise to.”
UCD’s Robbie Benson, former Chelsea starlet Conor Clifford and Derry City’s Patrick McEleney have all been heavily linked with moves to the champions in recent weeks.
Candystripes boss Kenny Shiels said that the club would ‘pull out all of the stops’ to keep the 23-year-old at The Brandywell but Dundalk are favourites to land his signature, if compensation between the clubs can be agreed.
“We’ll have to see about that,” said Kenny. “There will be compensation involved and that’s something that will have to be addressed but Patrick is a player I like.”
Closer to home, Kenny is due to speak to Daryl Horgan this week about his future.
The winger spent time at Peterborough United last week but he told supporters at the book launch of Dundalk FC | The Double on Saturday night that he would ‘more than likely’ be playing with Dundalk in 2016.
“Ideally we would want to keep Daryl,” said Kenny. “He is a brilliant player and is a year younger than Richie so he still has time in the future for a move.”
In terms of departures, Kenny said that Towell and Kurtis Byrne — who signed for Bohemians last week — are the only two likely to leave Dundalk.
“Kurtis made a major contribution to us over the last three years. He was a major player in his first two seasons with us and had a big role to play. He wanted to move to play regular football and that’s something I can understand. We wish wim well also,” said Kenny.
