Glenavon down to bare-bones for clash with league leaders Cliftonville

The Lurgan Blues are coming off a 2-1 defeat to Dungannon Swifts on Saturday and suffered further blows with Calum Birney and Isaac Baird suspended after both picked up yellow cards while Conor McCloskey pulled up with a calf strain in the opening minutes at Stangmore Park.

"It's ridiculous at the minute and we're looking high and wide for players, but nothing is coming to the forefront that's going to improve the squad or we can afford wages wise,” Hamilton told Glenavon’s YouTube channel.

“There's nothing out there at this moment in time and I've spoken to other managers who are in the same boat.

"It's tough but if you look at today (vs Dungannon), we've had a goalkeeper on the bench which I don’t normally do and young Harry Norton from the under-20s.

"Without doubt our bench on Tuesday night will be made up of under-20 players."

One thing Hamilton is looking to see his side improve on is their effectiveness from set-pieces – in both boxes.

Dungannon’s equaliser at the weekend came as a result of Glenavon failing to clear their lines from a corner while they had 12 of their own, including nine in the second-half, but weren’t able to make any of them count.

"They’re a massive part of the game,” Hamilton added. “Dungannon scored from one and we haven't scored from any.

"If you look at the Premier League, they are employing set-piece coaches because they are so important. We're getting so many in a game and not scoring from enough.

"The boys are going to have to work on them and be more aggressive in the box and want to score goals.

"It's in both boxes - over the last weeks it's man on man defending in the box and we conceded today, two against Linfield, the last game against Dungannon here.

"It's happening too many times in our box but on the flipside we aren't scoring enough either."