Waterford No 2 Alan Reynolds tops list of targets for Bohemians

Declan Devine departed the club on Sunday.

Sun, 10 Mar, 2024 - 19:30

John Fallon

Alan Reynolds is in the mix to become Bohemians manager after the club jettisoned Declan Devine four matches into the new season.

The Gypsies boss was already feeling the strain after missing out on European qualification last season despite soaring into an early lead in the title chase and reaching the FAI Cup final.

Pat Fenlon, the last manager to deliver silverware at Dalymount Park, returned at the start of the 2023 season as director of football and eventually ran out of patience with the first-team hierarchy.

Devine’s assistant Gary Cronin also exits with immediate effect but another sidekick, club legend Derek Pender, will be part of Fenlon’s caretaker structure that begins their tenure on Friday at home to second-placed Derry City.

Members-owned club Bohemians are in rude financial health, primarily through solid renewals and season ticket sales, the highest merchandising yield in the league but also the €1.5m slice they banked from the transfer of Matt Doherty to Tottenham in August 2020.

Fenlon was tasked with enhancing the footballing operations when headhunted from the general manager’s role at Linfield last year.

Part of that remit was securing ownership of the Oscar Traynor Complex for their offices and training centre and over the last eight months there’s been a change at the helm of women’s manager, Sean Byrne being replaced by Ken Kiernan, while they're close to appointing a successor to Academy Director Craig Sexton.

Bohs won just one of their four opening matches, an FAI Cup final revenge against St Patrick’s Athletic, but two defeats in five days to Drogheda United and Shelbourne, particularly the former, prompted a meeting of the club’s board on Sunday morning.

A chorus of boos from fans after the 2-0 home defeat to Shels wasn't flagged as the end but the cumulative demise triggered the axe.

Reynolds is currently acting as assistant to Devine’s predecessor Keith Long at Waterford but was tipped to depart his hometown club over the winter when Ruaidhrí Higgins made a play to lure his former No 2 at Derry City.

That move was scuppered by an inability to agree a compensation package for the final year on Reynolds’ contract but shelling out a five-figure sum won’t be an obstacle for Bohemians.

They will consider other candidates during the interview process - former Ireland defender Richard Dunne may try again for his first senior coaching role - but Reynolds is deemed the frontrunner at this early stage having been linked on that occasion too.

Reynolds, who turns 50 in June, played under Fenlon at Shelbourne and the pair also worked in tandem to lift Waterford out of the First Division in 2018.

That double-act of director of football and head coach may be resurrected in this instance.