Cliftonville’s injury problems mount

Aaron Donnelly was the latest Reds star to pick up an injury as he limped out of Tuesday night’s Co Antrim Shield semi-final defeat to Glentoran.

McLaughlin isn’t looking for excuses but he admitted it is making things tough.

“We’re not making excuses because injuries are part and parcel of football and every club gets them but to have had that many in such a short time is really tough for us to take,” he told the club website.

“Hopefully Aaron’s not as bad as we fear but it doesn’t look good, to be honest. We really missed him when he went off.

“We potentially face him being out for a while. On top of that, there’s Donal Rocks who’s done his cruciate, Calvin McCurry who’s done his cruciate and then Levi Ives is back in the boot with a metatarsal injury.

“Both Chris and Ryan Curran, Conor McMenamin and Garry Breen have had their problems in the last few weeks and ‘Breeny’s’ taking painkillers to play through the pain barrier for us.”

Today’s opponents Warrenpoint Town had to settle for a share of the spoils at home to Portadown last week, but boss Barry Gray felt his side were on top up until Colm Deasy’s dismissal.

“It was a very dogged game, but we knew we would be in for that,” he said.

“Truth be told it’s going to be two teams that’s going to be there or thereabouts in the bottom half of the table.

“We knew they would see it as an opportunity like we did.

“We got off to a slow start and fell behind to a very good finish.

“It took us far too long in the first half to settle into what we would call our normal game.

“That was disappointing, but we took the second half in good fashion.

“We equalised and were probably well on top for most of the half up until the sending off.”