Carrick Rangers will be 'very active in the next week or two' in search for January recruits
Carrick Rangers boss Stephen Baxter admits he’ll be “very active in the next week or two” in the search for January reinforcements after suffering another injury blow as Kyle Cherry was forced off during their Boxing Day defeat to Larne.
Baxter’s men took the lead against the Premiership table-toppers thanks to Paul Heatley’s strike, but Tiarnan O’Connor and Paul O’Neill scored late on for the Inver Reds.
Carrick were hit with an early setback when Cherry limped off after only five minutes with Seanan Clucas, who had been limited to just 37 league minutes this season as he recovers from injury, coming on.
The Co Antrim outfit have now won only one of their last 10 league matches and remain six points ahead of bottom side Glenavon.
Next month’s transfer window provides an opportunity for Irish League clubs to strengthen their squads and Baxter admits he could dip into the market with several key players on the sideline.
"Kyle has tweaked his hamstring,” Baxter told the club’s media channel. “He has went into a tackle and whatever way he has stretched for it, the hamstring has tweaked and that could be a four to six week injury.
"That’s really disappointing because he had just come back and was starting to play really good football for us.
"You’re down to the bones a little bit with one or two players...we had young Codey (James) on the bench at 16.
"Seanan Clucas was class – what a player to get back. He hasn’t played for six months and he stepped into the game and was excellent all over the pitch, as they all were.
"When you get that level of performance from your players, you can’t ask any more of them. The quality, desire, focus, hunger to play is immense and that pleases me no end.
"We are tight with numbers, have lots of games coming up, and we will probably be very active in the next week or two looking for one or two replacements to bolster the squad to get through the next four months, that’s going to be important.
"We will take our time, see where it goes and try to make the right decisions.”
Eight of Carrick’s 11 league losses this season have been by only one goal, including against both Larne and Coleraine, and Baxter insists his side will get their rewards if they continue to produce similar performances.
"Larne step into your arena as a team who are going to challenge hard for the league title and we were as every bit as good, if not better than them,” he added. “In the first 30 minutes, we were all over them like a rash and had them under all sorts of pressure.
"What a pass from Billy Joe Burns (for the goal) – he breaks out, doesn’t panic, takes his time, whips the ball off the outside of his foot around the corner for Paul Heatley and he finishes with aplomb. Billy Joe Burns was man of the match by a country mile, what a performance.
"We’re disappointed because we deserved more and that has been the story of our season so far, but I told the team ‘do not be down on yourselves because with that type of performance you’ll get something more down the street’.”