Michael O'Connor makes Glenavon transfer window admission with 'stay in the league' objective

After falling to a 2-1 defeat against high-flying Larne at Inver Park on Friday evening, the Lurgan Blues remain 10 points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership table.

Glenavon have already confirmed the departure of summer signing Francely Lomboto with both parties mutually agreeing to part ways, and while there could be further outgoings, O’Connor is fully focused on adding quality to his squad with the main goal preserving top-flight status.

"We need to bring players in, it’s as simple as that,” he told the club’s media channel. “The league table doesn’t lie, we’re bottom of the league so we need to bring in players to improve the squad.

"Franny wasn’t playing much and he came and said he wanted to play somewhere else...I won’t stand in anybody’s way who doesn’t want to be here.

"I’m working hard, non-stop on the phone trying to get things sorted for the start of January. We need players in quick and I will keep working on it and hopefully come January there will be some incomings.

"There might be some departures, I don’t know, I need to speak to the players. We need to strengthen in January to stay in the league.”

Glenavon took the lead through Luke Cartwright’s header, but Larne equalised quickly after the break thanks to Paul O’Neill before Conor McKendry secured three points for the hosts.

The Co Armagh club have conceded a Premiership-high 36 times across their 17 matches to date and O’Connor acknowledges his side have to be more defensively solid.

“It seems like we’re getting punished for everything,” he added. “It does need to be better – the goals we’re conceding...we’re doing the right things for most of the game and it’s that lapse of concentration where we’re switching off and getting punished for it.

"We’re at the bottom of the league...if you’re at the top you don’t get punished, but because of where we are it feels we’re getting punished.

"We need to be better. The goals we’re conceding at the minute, teams aren’t having to work overly hard for them, we’re gifting them a bit, but I can’t fault the boys because I thought they were super tonight.

"We knew we were going to come down here and not have much of the ball so we needed to be disciplined, talk to each other, communicate, and I thought for most of the game our shape was really good.

"It looked in the first half we could break, get a few chances and I thought 1-0 at half-time was fair.

"I said to the boys that we needed to do the same things we were doing and then we gave away a silly foul 30 seconds into the second half and they score from it.

"You’re against the wall a bit then, they’ve got the fans behind them...I thought after that we did well again and regrouped, which we didn’t do last week against Crusaders.

"To get the second goal is a bit soft as well – their player runs through three or four, Marko (Byrne) saves it and then the rebound.

"I’m really proud of them. To come to Inver Park and play as we did, contain them with the forward players they have on the pitch, I’m really proud of them, but it means nothing if you don't get any points from it.”