CLIFTONVILLE manager Barry Gray has said he is considering making changes to his squad following Saturday’s north Belfast derby defeat to Crusaders at Solitude.
The Reds were left stunned when they conceded two goals in the opening 10 minutes and never managed to recover from that early shock. Jordan Owens opened the scoring for the Crues just two minutes in when he volleyed home from a well-delivered throw-in, while Colin Coates made it two on nine minutes.
While the home side did manage to pull a goal back in second-half injury-time through Jay Donnelly, it was too little too late for the Reds, who have lost to Coleraine and drawn with Ballinamallard since their opening day win over Ards.
“The games so far would suggest that there’s possibly a requirement for a bit of a shake up,” said former Warrenpoint Town boss Gray last night.
“That’s not to say the players aren’t good enough or bad enough or whatever, but we’ve had such a mixed bag of everything so far, it’s very hard to get a gauge of where we are at this minute in time.”
Referring to that disastrous opening period against Stephen Baxter’s side, Gray added: “We’re obviously very disappointed.
“The 2-1 scoreline would suggest a different type of game than it actually was for us. The way we started the game was the killer for us, I don’t think it takes any rocket science to work that one out.
“When we got settled after that rocky start, the tightness of the game would leave you even more frustrated because it was so tight and, if you hadn’t given silly goals away like we did, you could have been coming out of the game with something.
“There’s a level of disappointment and frustration with the result and, more than anything, with the level of the performance. To date, my biggest criticism of everything, results aside, is that the standard of performance just hasn’t been consistent enough.
“For me as a new manager in the squad, we’re trying to weigh up what our course of action should be. In terms of players that we’ve inherited from last year, in terms of whether we stick or bust with them, whether we need to bring new in or put some faces out. It’s very difficult to know.”
Crusaders had goal-scorer Colin Coates dismissed on Saturday, while Cliftonville’s Levi Ives was given his marching orders for a second-half tackle, but Gray had no major issue with the referee’s decision.
“It was a sloppy tackle and, in fairness, if it had been on one of my players, I would have been looking for a red card,” he admitted.
“All I would say is, there were a few tackles like that on Saturday and, if one merits a red card, then they all should.”
Cliftonville kick-off their League Cup campaign with a home tie against Banbridge Town on Tuesday night, kick-off is 7.45pm.
