Stephen McDonnell wants to maximise potential of Glenavon's current squad before looking to transfer market

The 31-year-old has enjoyed a tremendous start to life in the Mourneview Park dugout and victory on Friday night would complete a November clean sweep of their fellow bottom-six rivals for the Lurgan Blues.

After sitting bottom of the table at one point last month, McDonnell’s men have moved up to eighth and could leapfrog Loughgall, who they defeated 2-0 last weekend, into seventh spot with three points at the Showgrounds.

They announced the arrival of 25-year-old winger James Doona from Longford Town earlier this month, but McDonnell wants to try and get the best out of his current crop of players before making further recruitment plans ahead of the January window.

"We'll see,” he said. “We felt we needed another wide player and James is someone I know really well from his time in the League of Ireland and we felt we could go and get the deal done early.

"We're not saying we'll be back in the market or whatever, but we're here to work with the current crop of players and we've said that from day one. We're trying to maximise what we have here before going looking, but we just felt we could get James now after coming out of contract.

"He will bring another dimension to our attacking play. We want to be exciting and get fans off their seat - that's the brand of football I want to play and we're slowly getting there."

Glenavon have enjoyed a terrific transformation under McDonnell, who says he’s taken the same approach towards every game, regardless of opposition.

"You never expect anything in football and you have to go and earn the right,” he added. "We’ve literally taken it opposition by opposition and not looked any further or put a points tally on any game.

"We want three points whether it’s against Larne, Linfield, Loughgall, Newry – it’s a game of football where there’s an opportunity to do something. That’s the way we’ve approached it and we’ve came out the right side in the last four games. The most pleasing part is the clean sheets – we’ve kept three on the spin which is massively encouraging.”