Tiernan Lynch believes Larne's January recruit Chris Gallagher is 'as good as you'll get in the league' in his position

The 24-year-old midfielder swapped Solitude for Inver Park on Monday after weeks of rumour and speculation with Lynch further bolstering his squad as Larne look to retain the league title they lifted for the first time in their 134-year history last season.

They currently trail leaders Linfield, who host Crusaders this afternoon, by four points while Gallagher’s former club Cliftonville are also firmly in the race, sitting four points behind Larne in third with one game in hand.

Having started his career with Linfield before gaining further Irish League experience at Glentoran and the Reds after spending three years in England at Shrewsbury, Lynch is delighted to have secured Gallagher’s services.

"Chris is somebody we've admired now for a couple of years,” he said. “When we first enquired about him a couple of seasons ago he probably needed to just go and play and he's done that, and done it brilliantly.

"He went to Cliftonville and was a stalwart for them. In our opinion he's probably as good as you'll get in the league at that position so we're delighted to have him in.

"He adds experience and he also adds a bit of calmness and quality. He's very comfortable on the ball, reads the game really well and he will definitely be a great addition for us."

Gallagher joins goalkeeper Aidan McAdams and midfielder Oisin Devlin, who will return to Institute for the rest of this season, as January arrivals, but Lynch admits he’d like to add “one or two” more players to his squad before the window shuts.

They’ve been creative in their recruitment over the last couple of years by bringing in a number of players from Scotland, such as Andy Ryan and Shaun Want, while midfielder Jaziel Orozco joined on loan from Major League Soccer side Real Salt Lake.

"There's definitely irons in fires, whether any of them come off or not I don't know,” he added. “We do feel like we would like to add one or two players to what we're doing and getting the right player.

"The ideal scenario is you're bringing in players from the Irish League because they are used to the league, but it's becoming more difficult because not everybody wants to go full-time.

"There's probably an element of players that want to go full-time, then there are players with good jobs or in education, so there's a balance in that which is why we've maybe had to look outside the Irish League and go into Scotland, go down south or look into England.

"When you do that then there's a fair bit of work that goes into making sure they are the right player and January is probably not the best window for that. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes."

With only eight games to go until the crucial league split, this is another important weekend of fixtures as clubs at the top look to continue their momentum, but Lynch still feels there’s a long way to go yet.

"There's a long way to go and I wouldn't be ruling any team out at this stage,” he added. “A run of games for any club gets you right back into it."