Search continues for final pieces of Lyttle’s puzzle
SLIGO Rovers manager Ger Lyttle says he is more than willing to give youth players a chance this season, after youngster Niall Morahan featured in the Bit o’Red’s 4-2 win over the Mayo League at Milebush last Saturday afternoon.
Under 17 player of the year, Morahan, formerly of Carrick Town, impressed the boss when he came on as a sub.
“I don’t care what age they are. If they’re good enough they’re going to be part of it. If they can push whoever is in the first-team. As I said last year when I came in, we couldn’t focus too much on youth because of where we were but now it’s an open book. I can put a bit of effort into looking at young talent coming through. It would be crazy if I didn’t. You’ll probably see a few more, especially in pre-season coming and playing. Niall did well. He’s a calm kid, I really like him. He’s a nice kid as well and one of our own,” Lyttle said.
Rovers took the lead in the first-half courtesy of an own-goal when Gary Boylan’s pass was hooked into the net by a Mayo player, before Adam Morgan made it 2-0, having come close on numerous occasions throughout the afternoon.
Brazilian trialist Eduardo Pincelli scored Rovers’ third goal of the afternoon when he dinked the ‘keeper, and trialist Lewis Morrison scored Rovers’ fourth having won a penalty in the second-half.
Lyttle was pleased with the physical challenge that the Mayo League gave his side.
“It was a great workout, great facilities here. I thought the Mayo select team played some really nice football at times as well. It was really good, physical, which we want. There was a couple of new starts as well. We’re starting to gel a wee bit, there was certainly an improvement from last week. So far so good.”
With two trialists scoring on the day, along with a Danish defender featuring and American goalkeeper Alex Perez played the second-half. But Lyttle says he won’t be rushing into making any decisions with regards to signing players.
“That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking to bring some quality in. The last trialist’s goal (Morrison), he’s been with us since Holland, he’s done really well. He’s a good young player, only 18. I’m happy with him. We’re happy, we have another couple of weeks to look at things so we won’t rush into anything just yet.”
Adam Wixted, Craig Roddan and Raffaele Cretaro all missed out on Saturday with slight injuries, with Lyttle opting not to risk players.
“Nothing serious, Wixted has picked up an injury on the bottom of his foot, it’s just flared up. We didn’t want to risk him because he’s worked really hard. Roddan has a little niggle in his thigh, Raff was the same.
“There was no point pushing them through yet. Everyone shaped up well. Training’s been good so far. In the next couple of weeks we’ll start fine-tuning things a bit and look at our shape and looking at our personnel and how we’ll go about our business.”
Ideally, Lyttle wants to add five players to his squad but he knows that financially, it may not be possible. Three is the absolute minimum he needs, but he is hopeful that he could squeeze in a fourth signing.
“Positionally I would say a defender, another attack-minded player, a goalkeeper maybe two defenders. We’ll see what pops up.
“We’ve a couple of options there we’ve been looking at. It’s hard at this time of year. You’re trying to get guys on trial to run your eye over them, or do you take a risk and say you’ll go with what you’ve seen with video analysis, whatever it is.
“We want to get the right blend here and we want hungry players. Caolan McAleer gives us something different to what we had last year, he carries the ball well, Adam Morgan around the box is going to be a threat, he’s upset that he missed an easy chance but I’m happy that he’s getting into those positions.
“The other things will come. Greg Moorhouse will need to calm down a wee bit, he’s a bit too eager because he’s not scoring, young Lewis Morrison, we’ll look at because he was good as well and then the midfield three. In the first half in particular was harder to play and keeping the ball and moving the ball. We’ll fine tune a lot of things in the later stages of the month and get ready for the big game against Limerick.”
Lyttle also stressed the need to have a tight group of players who he knows will support one another.
“We’re trying to be a tight-knit group. It’s important. We achieved that last year, it was a big part of us staying up. We were very together. I love a good team bond. There’s times there where one or two of them need a kick up the backside and we expect that to happen.
“You see Rhys McCabe and Jack Keaney having a go at each other as well because Rhys was cracking up because he never pulled it back I’m saying if he does pull it back and doesn’t shoot then I’m cracking up. That’s the way it is. That’s the winning mentality and that’s what we want.”
Rovers travel to Galway on Friday, before facing Ballisodare on Sunday with a potential friendly against Ballinamallard United in the pipeline in the following days.