Institute's interim manager Eddie Seydak hopes to strengthen squad

Seydak, who will be working alongside the club’s U20 manager, Russell Porter, and Gary Forth, ’Stute’s Youth Development Manager, admitted that Seamus Sharkey is a player the club is interested in but said he didn’t want to talk about any possible targets at this time.

“We are looking at a number of avenues and we have spoken to a number of people but, to be honest, it wouldn’t be right to be mentioning names at the moment in time,” insisted Seydak.

“We are trying to get bodies in, to try and strengthen the squad. We hope to maybe add a bit more experience to the panel that’s here at the minute, to help us secure a place in the division.”

The former Limavady United manager wants ’Stute to get back to basics as they prepare to face Annagh United at the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium, on Saturday afternoon (KO 3pm).

Seydak, who will not be in the dug-out on Saturday as he had a pre-arranged trip organised, did along with Porter and Forth take training this week, believes their young inexperienced squad need to roll their sleeves up and be ready for the fight.

“We are hoping to start picking up points as soon as possible. We spoke to the players on Tuesday night and we’ve told them that everybody has to roll up their sleeves and while there has only been three matches played, it hasn’t been a good start. Things have to improve and improve very quickly,” he added.

“We need performances to improve and we need to start getting points on the board because there are no weak teams in the Championship and there’s no team who is going to lay down and roll over for us. Any points that we gain will have to be hard earned so everybody will have to play at the top of their game and have the best attitude possible which will hopefully mean we can start picking up points as soon as possible.”

The ex-Derry City youth team coach is hoping that captain Cormac Burke and young defender Rhys McDermott will return to the squad for tomorrow, however Aidan McCauley, Shaun Leppard and Joel Gorman are all still missing.

Having conceded 13 goals in their opening three league games and currently marooned at the bottom of the Lough 41 Championship awaiting their first point of the season, Seydak wants the squad to adopt a ‘back to basics’ approach and aim for a clean-sheet against free-scoring Annagh, who defeated Ballyclare Comrades 5-1 last weekend.

“Myself, Russell and Gary are coming in on a temporary basis and we hope to have a few players back,” he explained.

“Hopefully Rhys McDermott and Cormac Burke will be back. We are also looking about trying to get players in to strengthen the squad as it’s very young and lack a bit of depth.

“Any successful team is built on a strong defence so that’s the one thing that we are going to have to improve on and get right,” he added.

“We have to stop conceding goals. We can’t be expected to score four or five goals every week to win a match, no team could do that, so keeping clean-sheets is our aim.

“It may take a week or so to get things gelled together but that’s our aim, to stop the rot. I keep repeating myself but we have start picking up points soon.”