CORK CITY MANAGER John Caulfield has confirmed that Ryan Delaney will return to parent club Burton Albion following Sunday week’s FAI Cup final against Dundalk.
Delaney, who joined City on loan from the English Championship club in January, played a key role as the Leesiders won their first SSE Airtricity League Premier Division title in 12 years.
The 21-year-old centre-half will hope to complete a league-and-cup-double when City renew their rivalry with Dundalk at the Aviva Stadium on 5 November.
Delaney, who was voted SWAI/SSE Airtricity League player of the month for May, was due to return to Burton in the summer but Caulfield succeeded in extending his loan period until the end of the 2017 domestic season in Ireland.
However, Friday’s 4-2 defeat to St Patrick’s Athletic — in which Delaney opened the scoring — looks set to be the Irish U21 international’s final league game for the club. The Wexford native is suspended for this Friday’s visit of Bray Wanderers to Turner’s Cross.
“He has to go back to Burton,” Caulfield said this afternoon when asked about Delaney’s future. “He’s their player. We’ve already spoken about it and he is going back. To be fair to them, they want to see if he can get into their team. We’ll see how that progresses.”
Burton, who are managed by former Liverpool and Nottingham Forest striker Nigel Clough, narrowly avoided dropping out of England’s second tier last season. They’re back in the relegation zone now, having taken just 10 points from their 13 games so far.
Caulfield said: “We had a great relationship with Nigel Clough and he gave him [Delaney] to us for the full year. He’s going back now with a league medal and he has played with the Irish U21s. He’s got 40 games played so they [Burton] want to see if he can get into their team and play regularly.”
Caulfield is likely to be busy in the transfer market over the coming weeks and months. Karl Sheppard, Greg Bolger, Stephen Dooley and Steven Beattie are all being linked with moves away from the champions.
The City boss will also be keen to source a replacement for leading goalscorer Sean Maguire, who departed — along with left-back Kevin O’Connor — for Preston North End in July.
“A lot of the lads will stay and some of them I think will probably go,” said Caulfield. “It’s up to me to replace the fellas that go. Either way, we need to be active because we need to replace players anyway. We lost Seanie [Maguire] and Kevin [O'Connor], two guys at once, and we only brought in [Kieran] Sadlier. Ryan [Delaney] is going.
“We need bodies in because we were exceptionally tight in the end. John Kavanagh had been loaned to Cobh so he’ll come back in, but there’s obviously going to be a lot of activity and it’s up to me and the rest of the management to identify the right guys that will make sure we’re better again next year.”
