Stephen McDonnell: Glenavon aren't expected to get anything against Larne but we're embracing the challenge

Since the start of last season, Larne have lost just one home league match, collecting 67 points from a possible 84 and are the only top-flight side that remain undefeated on their own patch this term, winning eight and drawing twice while scoring 26 goals in the process.

Over the course of the past five Premiership games, the Inver Reds and Glenavon have both picked up 13 points – more than any other team – with McDonnell’s men conceding once in that timeframe and demonstrating a significant improvement since the 31-year-old took charge in late-September.

His first game was against Larne where they lost out 4-0, but since then the Mourneview Park outfit have won nine of 14 matches across competitions, set up a BetMcLean Cup semi-final clash against rivals Portadown and went unbeaten in six league outings.

"It's there for everybody to see that the group has developed and evolved,” reflected McDonnell on their journey over the past two months. “It highlights the importance of time and we've had that time with the players where you can see a clear way of how we want them to play.

“Larne are the best home team in the league and haven't been beaten there in over a year so that highlights the challenge we have to go there and try to be competitive. We're not expected to get anything there at all – form or no form – with the size of squads and everything else.

"They'd probably be able to flip an entire 11 whereas we have 13 or 14 that we're working off at the moment. We shouldn't even be in the conversation, but we're an extremely optimistic group of people and we want to go there and embrace the challenge of 'can we be the first team to turn them over on their home patch within the last year?'.

"We're obviously in a very good place and we'll sit down with the players as normal to go through things in great detail. It's a matter of can we perform and the lads have been doing that over the last number of weeks."

With the loss of star striker Matthew Fitzpatrick to Linfield during the summer, goals had been an early season problem for Glenavon and even now they’ve scored the league’s third-fewest (22), but midfielder Jack Malone brought his tally to seven in their midweek cup success against Coleraine and 19-year-old Aaron Prendergast registered a third in four matches.

Prendergast has been leading the Glenavon line, starting in the last nine games, and McDonnell is delighted with his progression.

"AP is getting a fair run at it and you can see he's starting to grasp the tactical side of the game,” he added. “At 19 he still has so much development to do and he's found himself in a privileged position in terms of getting to learn on the job with being our main man upfront.

"He has certainly turned a corner. This is probably his first real consistent run in the senior team and we're absolutely delighted. He's scoring goals and we've Jack Malone who is continuing to score goals from midfield. Jack has been a revelation and is the highest goalscorer for us. We're really pleased that lads are adding goals to their game."