Four front

Barry Gray commended a professional display as Cliftonville saw off the challenge of Banbridge Town at Solitude last night.

A Jay Donnelly double in addition to strikes from Chris Curran and Joe Gormley saw the Reds comfortably through to the Third Round of the League Cup, much to the Manager’ satisfaction.

“A clean sheet and four goals for, it could have been more but it was a professional performance,” he said.

“That was the key highlight for me – it was professionally executed. That’s what we talked about on Monday night at training. We highlighted to the players and they delivered exactly what they were asked to do so full credit.

“The important thing was the strikers getting in amongst the goals, both have done that. Things aren’t working perfectly well for Joe [Gormley] at the minute but he’s working hard and things will come. We’ve ticked the boxes, we done it professionally and that’s the key thing.”

And on his post-match addition of frontman Rory Donnelly, Gray added: “All the experts out there were telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. I’ve a very fine idea of what I want to do, the key thing is to sign quality players in positions that we need them.

“I said it in my first outing here, I won’t sign players just for the sake of it. I’ll sign them in areas that we think that the player can do well in. Rory fits all them boxes for us, no doubt about that, and we’ll continue to look to strengthen in other areas like we said we would.”