Horgan: We struggled to find value for money in Ireland

Even by Finn Harps normal standards - "and normal is bad for us" - the recent off-season was marked by exodus and upheaval.

And much scrimping and scraping to get in a fit state for the starting post in 2022.

Resources are famously stretched in Ballybofey and Harps, in Ollie Horgan's estimation, typically lose about four or five of their key players from season to season.

After 2021, where the club secured eighth spot, successfully dodging the playoffs, the outflow was even more severe.

They've had to replace no fewer than eleven members from the 2021 squad.

"On and off the pitch, we've lost individuals who'll be very difficult to replace," Horgan told RTÉ Sport at the SSE Airtricity League launch in Dublin.

"And there's only one way of finding out and that'll be in the next month or two. We've always lost a couple and replaced them. Now we've lost eleven.

"Probably if Shamrock Rovers lost eleven, they may not maintain the position they're in. We have to maintain our position, as in eighth position, to try to survive.

"We've had battles over the years, this without doubt will be the biggest of the lot."

In the past, Horgan has been quick to paint his team as obvious relegation fodder. In 2022, as in previous years, when it comes to considering who might go down, the Finn Harps manager finds it hard to look beyond his own team.

Horgan is known not to belong to the Ally McLeod school of management/ sports psychology.

He has brought his own particularly extreme brand of west of Ireland pessimism to the top tier of Irish football and - despite his own doom-laden predictions at the beginning of every season - has somehow succeeded in keeping it there. (When it was suggested once, after a quick start to the season, that Harps could even