Lyttle hails attacking players

LEFT short on attacking options upon his arrival at the club in April 2017, Ger Lyttle was often left lamenting the lack of options on the bench when he was trying to chase a game.

With that in mind, the former Cliftonville manager made sure that it was an area he would not be stuck in as this season approached.

With that, he spent most of pre-season playing with attacking full-backs. An injury to Regan Donelon thwarted the plans made in pre-season, with that one injury throwing out the team for the first game against Limerick.

Now that he has his desired number of attacking players throughout the team, Lyttle saw the fruits of his hard work in recruitment on Friday night.

It’s still a work in progress, as it’s still early days yet for the Bit o’Red and their new arrivals.

With both Adam Morgan and Alistair Roy getting off the mark on Friday night, Lyttle was pleased with how the team worked together.

“Ally Roy (pictured) was excellent and his pace and Adam Morgan kept going until he got his goal and that’s the type of goal he preys on. I’m buzzing with it, it’s word I don’t like using, but I am.

“Hopefully we can get better and stronger as the games come to us. We’re gelling in, it’s a bedding in period. I thought tonight we all clicked,” he said.

Morgan’s arrival here in the North-West made for a lot of headlines both in Ireland and abroad, with a bit of pressure on him to prove himself here in the League of Ireland.

Morgan previously said pressure is not something that bothers him much, but Lyttle was pleased for him to open his goalscoring account on Friday night.

He cut a frustrated figure at times during Rovers’ pre-season campaign, but with more additions to Rovers’ squad since, he is more likely to get the delivery that he requires to score goals.

“That’s the important thing for a centre forward when the season starts is to get off the mark, and we all want him to do well because he’s such a great lad and a great player but we have a good team there, we have Greg Moorhouse come off the bench and we haven’t even seen young Lewis Morrison yet and we have Wixted who was unbelievable in pre-season, he’s been unlucky with the flu.

“It’s exciting that we can look at the bench and see that we have good options there to change. It’s a long season and everyone’s going to play their part,” he added.