Stephen McDonnell: We're starting to see some fruits of the labour early on at Glenavon

McDonnell, who took over from Gary Hamilton last month, has developed a reputation for an attacking brand of football early on in his coaching career and his side carried out their instructions almost to a tee in the first-half as they dominated proceedings.

From high-pressing to playing out from the back and some impressive patterns going forward, the hosts impressed but were unable to make their chances count before Rory Hale served up the ultimate punishment shortly after the break.

Cliftonville also struck the woodwork on four occasions, but there are undoubtedly positive signs despite their current league position of 11th - and even McDonnell has been slightly surprised by the pace of their adaption.

"It's blown my mind a bit,” he said. “Not that I should be surprised because there are a lot of top senior players here who have done things in the game.

"It has caught me a wee bit by surprise because we haven't had a full week of training yet due to midweek matches.

"We've had five matches and three sessions since we've came in, so we've had little time to implement ideas.

"I'm pleasantly surprised with how they've done it and credit goes to the players.

"We're here to put them into a position where we think they're best and you're starting to see some fruits of the labour early on.

"We'd hope to continue building on that."

An area McDonnell will have to address in the coming weeks to put the finishing touches to their positive play is finding a source of goals.

Only bottom side Ballymena United have scored fewer in the Premiership than Glenavon and the new boss says they have to come up with a solution.

"We started Conor McCloskey through the middle tonight,” he added. “We've young AP (Aaron Prendergast) on the bench, who is going to be a terrific talent I believe and has huge potential, but he's still learning his trade.

"We can't rely on him, as much as I would love to put that on him - we have to be careful how we manage players.

"He's 18, Cohen Henderson is 17, Isaac Baird has a bit more experience.

"The league table doesn't lie. We need to find a recipe, whether it's through a centre-forward or we spread the load.

"Arsenal competed for a league title last season and they didn't have an out-and-out goalscorer, so we need to find ways for now to score goals without having to rely heavily on one player."

The free agent market is one avenue open to McDonnell as he looks for an answer, but nothing has appealed to him and he wants to give each member of the current squad their opportunity to impress.

"We've done a bit of exploring but there's nothing we would quite fancy at this moment that's out there,” he said. “Anybody who can put the ball in the net is signed up I imagine.

"We have the League of Ireland season coming to an end so there's time I suppose to have conversations, which we will do.

"I have to be fair to the players that are here because they've been terrific since we came in.

"I want to squeeze everything out of them and get the best performances.

"We don't want to be making additions or signing players in January - we would love to move with this squad.

"If we need to add a little sprinkle of magic here or there, then we will have to do that because the most important thing for this club is to remain in the league and hopefully we could kick on then."