Declan Devine confirms Glentoran star has 'successfully came through his knee operation' and now on road to recovery

Having signed from Ballymena United ahead of last season, 25-year-old Kelly made 19 league appearances throughout his maiden campaign in East Belfast, but looked set to play a major role under Devine this term, starting in all three of their opening Premiership matches.

He suffered an injury in the closing stages of their goalless draw against Coleraine at The Oval and will now be “out for some months” as the Glens look to build on a positive start to the new season.

Heading into Saturday’s clash with Dungannon Swifts, Devine’s men have put together an unbeaten run of five matches across competitions with the sole blemish on their record an opening day loss to Crusaders.

They defeated Cliftonville last weekend and followed it up with a Co Antrim Shield penalty shootout win over neighbours H&W Welders on Tuesday evening, where Devine handed Andrew Mills, Danny Amos and Finley Thorndike their club debuts.

"Josh Kelly successfully came through his knee operation this week,” Devine told the club’s website. “He’ll be out for some months but being the sort of person he is I know he’ll deal with this positively and bounce back well from this setback.

"At the Welders the big thing was getting the win in a knock out competition. The Welders were excellent but we should have got the game won in 90 minutes as we created more than enough chances before James (Singleton) got our equaliser.

“He deserved it for his performance. But it was good to be able to give our three new lads and Andrew Mills their first start and also good to see Jay (Donnelly) get on the scoresheet with our first one.”

Dungannon will also be hoping to build on momentum of their own having picked up consecutive league victories over Ballymena United and Loughgall before 18-year-old Aidan Hegarty netted a hat-trick in a 4-0 midweek Mid-Ulster Cup win over Coagh United.

"Last Saturday against Cliftonville was a very good one against one of the best teams in the league,” reflected Devine. “We started very positively and well both before and after JJ (Jordan Jenkins) scored his wonderful goal, but more than anything else I was very pleased with our work ethic both with and without the ball and also the style of football we played for much of the game.

"The whole team were pretty much out on their feet by the end so we really needed the fans to get loudly behind us. They did and that really geed the boys through a tough last ten minutes or so. That’s what we want the Oval to be like every week on and off the pitch.

"For Saturday we know the quality Rodney (McAree) has in his squad and like ourselves they’re coming into this one on the back of a couple of good wins, so it’ll be another tough one against another good team but if the lads play as well as they did against the Reds we can come away with the result we want.”