Portadown double assault plan to tackle 'bad festive period'

​A league loss to both Glentoran and Glenavon marked a low end to a year of overall progress in 2024 by a Ports side promoted back up to senior football as second-tier champions and still sitting fourth in the Sports Direct Premiership standings.

Last weekend’s derby blow to Championship-based Annagh United left Niall Currie’s side out of the Irish Cup at the first hurdle.

"It's been a bad festive period for us,” declared Ports assistant manager Clifford Adams following the Annagh exit. "I remember last year it was similar - but we made a few changes going into the New Year.

"We're trying to do the same here to get more competition for places because there wasn't enough

"Nobody is making excuses...we'll make it right.

"As Niall (Currie, manager) would say, we've been here many, many times at different teams and different clubs.

"There's no crisis or anything like that, we've had a very good season."

Portadown had two January arrivals on show against Annagh as James Teelan broke the deadlock then Tabu Rabby Minzamba made his debut off the bench.

"We brought on Rabby in the second half as he got on it, tried to drive forward and stay on the ball,” said Adams, who described Teelan as “a real bright spark” on his debut. "That's probably been our biggest negative the last couple of games...we're not staying on the ball long enough, we're almost looking to get rid of it too quick.

"We've a target man we're looking to play into and play off and get balls into wide areas.

"It happened a couple of times (on Saturday) but not frequent enough."

Portadown now face another derby date with a weekend visit to bottom-of-the-table Loughgall.

"We've no time to feel sorry for ourselves,” said Adams. "Some of the boys looked leggy, which I can't understand because we've tried to look after them in the festive period.

"It's three games and we haven't done well enough.

"This is the time where you see your characters and the people who step up, whenever you're going through a wee dodgy spell.”