Football: Shiels rules out Coleraine move for Northern Ireland winger

Coleraine boss Dean Shiels says Gavin Whyte won't be signing for the club in the January transfer window.

The Northern Ireland international is currently a free agent, having left Portsmouth towards the end of last year and has been linked with a host of clubs, both in the Irish Premiership and League of Ireland.

Withsignificant recent investment at Coleraine after property developer Henry Ross took over as majority owenr of the club, the Bannsiders wre one of the names in the frame for the signature of the 28-year-old winger.

But Shiels was aksed directly whether that it is a realistic possiblity.

“I don’t think so, no," he answered.

“There was obviously interest from us, we’re not going to deny that, but I think there is interest from several clubs and I’d be really, really surprised if Gavin Whyte ended up at Coleraine. I don’t think we’re in the running for that one."

The Coleraine manager wouldn't be drawn on whether Linfield attacker Joel Cooper would be making the move to the north coast this month, with unconfirmed stories that Copper has already signed a pre-contract deal to go to Ballycastle Road at the end of the season.

“I’d love to talk about players and signings, but I just can’t speak about other team’s players. I think it would be disrespectful. Until we are bringing them in and announcing them, I don’t feel comfortable with it. I wouldn’t like it done if it were my players," said Shiels, who says there will be new faces coming to the club before the window shuts.

“What I will say is that we’re trying to strengthen in this window, for sure. We’re working really hard around the clock on that to try and give us strength in depth.

“Looking at the squad, Jackie Ciaron Harkin has moved back to Derry after his loan agreement and Mackenzie Carse has gone home for personal reasons. So, we are light and we have four players in our full-time programme who are 16 or 17, so we’re running with about 16 senior professionals now, which isn’t ideal," Shiels added.

“We’re looking to finish the season strongly and we’re going to need some help to do that. We’re really happy with the players we have and the quality within that and the younger players getting better, but we’ve a lot of midweek games coming up and we’re going to need a bigger squad to hopefully compete."

Coleraine are away to Glenavon in the Sports Direct Irish Premiership on Saturday.