Ahead of Saturday’s game against Dungannon Swifts, Gary Hamilton has called on his players to deliver the same level of commitment and desire as they did last week at the Oval.
Glenavon battled to a 1-1 draw against Glentoran which felt like a win – and Hamilton says that his squad should be looking to build upon that this week.
“It’s going to be a totally different game this week,” admitted Gary.
“We’ve played Dungannon since Kris has taken over. They sit deep and defend and try and hit you on the counter. Last week we were expecting Glentoran to attack us and maybe do what Dungannon would look to do to us, but our game plan went out the window when we went down to 10 men and then nine men. But, the boys dug in and got a result.
“They should take confidence from that. They shouldn’t take any arrogance from it but build upon that confidence.
“Every game is a tough game in the league these days – the results have already suggested that. It’s all about your attitude and how you perform. If we get the same commitment and performance out of each of the players that we did last week then we stand a chance of getting a result against any team in this league, there’s no doubt about that. But if we don’t have the concentration that we did last week then every team in this league will beat us.
“We’re looking for concentration, discipline, attitude, a desire to win and quality in the areas to make things happen.”
And there was more good news this week as the manager reported a ‘clean bill of health’ after missing players due to injuries and isolation.
He admits that not all of them will be involved tomorrow, but the fact that those who were missing over the past two weeks are back in training is a positive at least.
“There are players who are coming back but it’s a scenario where they don’t have the game time that they need to start, so they will likely be on the bench. Some of them might not even make the bench and might just do extra fitness work instead,” he explained.
“With the under 20s games not going ahead it has been difficult to get some of those players who are returning the match time that they require to get up to full speed.
“It’s looking better for us now because for the last two weeks there has been a lack of numbers. In our first game against Portadown our bench was short and against the Glens a lot of the players that were on the bench couldn’t have played more than 15 minutes. It restricts what you can do and the changes you can make.
“It will be a similar situation tomorrow but at least everyone is back into training. Some of those players have been missing for two weeks now and in that time you can lose a lot of fitness – everybody knows that. Before that some of those players maybe hadn’t got enough game time or had been carrying wee niggles but we are just delighted that we are just getting a full bill of health in terms of people getting back into training and keeping themselves fit.”
LAST TIME OUT: Glenavon put five without reply past the Swifts on Boxing Day 2019, thanks to goals from Conor McCloskey (2), Jordan Jenkins, Josh Daniels and Robbie Garrett.
OFFICIALS
REFEREE: Steven Gregg
ASSISTANT REFEREE: Gareth Eakin, Jamie Carnduff
FOURTH OFFICIAL: Shane Andrews
SPONSORS
MATCH SPONSOR: Edsel Muldrew, Muldrew’s Family Butchers
BALL SPONSOR: Ian Irwin
MAN OF THE MATCH SPONSOR: Louise McKinstry
