While the transfer window may be shut, Paddy McCourt admits Glentoran's business mightn't be done just yet

In what manager Declan Devine described as a summer squad “revamp”, the Glens let 19 players leave either on loan or permanent deals while nine arrived at The Oval, including former Northern Ireland youth international Danny Amos and ex-Birmingham City youngster Finley Thorndike, who both signed on deadline day.

There’s still the potential for Irish League clubs to look at the free agent market in an attempt to bolster their squads and Glentoran assistant manager Paddy McCourt admits that’s a route they may explore in the coming days.

"We’re getting better,” McCourt said after their weekend win over Cliftonville. “We had a poor start against Crusaders and were all a bit taken aback by the performance, but we’ve worked out now it was a lot of young lads playing here for the first time and the nerves got to them – they’ve shrugged that off.

"Frankie Hvid had a tough night against Crusaders and has came back the last four games really well. We’re delighted with the squad.

"We tried adding to the squad yesterday with a few and couldn’t get them so we hope we might be able to do that if there’s a free agent out there – we’ll try that over the next week or so.”

Reflecting on the transfer window as a whole, McCourt added: "It’s really, really tough. We spoke to a lot of people within the game and they all found it difficult.

"With Niall McGinn going, I think it’s 17 players or more that have left from last season and we’ve only brought in (nine) so we’re a bit light on the ground in terms of numbers.

"We’re really happy with the players we’ve brought in and we’ll try to get more to help the squad because it’s going to be a long season.”

The East Belfast outfit will look to continue their unbeaten run, which currently stands at four matches, against neighbours H&W Welders, who sit top of the Championship table on goal difference after beating Ballyclare Comrades 7-2 last weekend, in the County Antrim Shield on Tuesday evening.

They met during pre-season with summer signing Wassim Aouachria and Fuad Sule scoring in a 2-0 Glentoran victory and McCourt insists his side won’t be taking a positive result for granted.

"We probably will (look at rotating some players in) but it won’t be 11 in and 11 out because we don’t have the bodies and that’s the truth,” he said. “What we do have though are a few lads who joined the squad late and haven’t done a full pre-season.

"We’ll probably use this game to get them 70 or 80 minutes and help get them up to speed. What we won’t be doing is going there and making wholesale changes like we’ll beat the Welders – they are a good team.

"We played them in pre-season and they play a lovely brand of football and are really brave...if we went there not thinking we’re in for a tough night we’ll get turned over, so we won’t be disrespecting them. Any changes we make will be made to help us going forward.”