'I thought it was going to be a straight no': Jim Ervin backing former Scotland and Sunderland midfielder to make Irish League impact

McGeouch, who counts the likes of Aberdeen, Celtic and Sunderland amongst his former clubs, arrived in the Irish League earlier this month and made his debut as a substitute in Saturday’s 2-2 Premiership draw against Crusaders.

The 32-year-old midfielder brings significant experience to The Showgrounds having previously earned two caps for his country alongside lifting two Scottish Premiership titles with Celtic.

McGeouch also celebrated Scottish Cup glory at Hibernian and was named their Player of the Year in 2018.

While Ervin wasn’t initially holding much hope of finalising a deal for a player who was most recently on the books of League Two outfit Carlisle United, he was delighted McGeouch opted to join the club and feels he can play a big role.

"It's (looking for improvements) never done,” he said. “People kind of think when the season's up and running ‘they’ve got their squad settled for the season’, but it never works that way – you're always constantly looking at different areas that you feel you need to improve on.

"Then you have the other side of it where you get injuries and you're looking around at what you've got available. We've tried to be as smart as we can be and we're working within a budget…we have to make sure that we remain inside that budget.

"We had a conversation with Dylan and I'm going to be honest with you, when we first made contact, I probably thought it was going to be a straight no.

"But credit to Dylan, he looked at what we were doing, done his research, we've done ours, and when we met and we had a conversation, he was up for the fight. That's how we've managed to get him on board.

"I thought when he came on he had a couple of nice touches, was driving forward with the ball, and you can see the quality that he has. It's just now getting him the minutes and getting him up to speed as quickly as possible.”

Ballymena had to twice come from behind on Saturday as Kian Corbally cancelled out Jarlath O’Rourke’s opener before Daniel Lafferty’s late strike salvaged a point after Finley Thorndike had netted for the Crues.

"I felt at times we were putting ourselves under serious pressure continuing to play the ball backwards, but second half, I thought it was probably the most one-sided game that we've been involved in, in terms of us being on top,” added Ervin. "Then the longer the game's going on, you're thinking it's not going to be your day.

"I think we had something like 19 or 20 attempts on goal and they had nine or 10 blocks in their box.

"The biggest stat for me is the scoreline. It's not about the possession you have or the crosses. You can have all that, but if you don't put the ball in the back of the net you're not going to win games. We can't keep conceding two goals and expecting to win games of football.”