Ballinamallard manager Tommy Canning is hoping to add ‘two or three players’ to his squad in the January transfer window.

The Mallards started the season with a squad that was smaller than in recent years, and ongoing injuries and suspensions have further highlighted to the manager the necessity of adding several quality players as he looks to build for the future.

“The January transfer window is important for us because the squad needs a wee bit of help in terms of a bit of quality into it,” admitted Canning.

“It will only be if it is the right player, but we feel the football club is at a stage where it needs to rebuild. It’s not a complete rebuild, but over the last few seasons there has been a lot of players who have moved on.

“The group we have is good, and we want them all to stay, but we need a bit of help. We are happy with them all, but it feels like we are at a stage where it is important that the players we bring in are the right type of people.

“We want to be bringing in people that are hungry for a go at this and are a wee bit longer term, so we are not only bringing them in for a few months. We will have to wait and see what becomes available and what our resources allow, but we would like to bring in two or three in the January window.”

The need for additional players was emphasised to Canning on Saturday when Peter Maguire and Ryan Morris, two of his star performers this season, were forced out of the game against H&W Welders.

With half of the normal back four missing, the Mallards conceded twice in the first half and left themselves with too much to do to get back into the contest.

“We are in a situation overall where we can’t afford to be losing players,” admitted the manager. “What cost us was the fact we gave away two soft goals within ten minutes. A two goal lead against the Welders is a difficult mountain to climb and we left ourselves with too much to do. The response at half time was decent, and the second half performance was solid, but at that stage we had given ourselves too big a job to do.”

Canning is looking for his squad to bounce back from a sequence of results that has seen them notch only one victory from their last six league games, and he believes Christmas week will go a long way towards shaping the rest of their season.

Three games in seven days sees the Mallards welcome title chasing Portadown before they travel to Canning’s former club Dergview for the Boxing Day derby. That is followed by the visit of basement club Knockbreda before the end of December.

“They are three games within the space of a week that will be really influential for how we look in January,” acknowledged Canning.

“Portadown at Ferney Park is a massive game. Everyone enjoys playing against Portadown. They are obviously a very well established Irish league club, and they will bring their own entourage with them, and we look forward to that. Quickly off the back of that comes the derby on Boxing Day and we all know how difficult that can be. Then the Saturday after that is Knockbreda at Ferney Park, but I want to focus on Portadown first.”

The second of those three games will have special significance for the new Ballinamallard manager as he returns to his former club, but Canning will be trying to put aside personal sentiment in pursuit of a derby day victory.

“It will be a strange situation for me,” he acknowledged.

“It will be the first time I will have gone back to a club I managed before with another club, and I know there will be a lot of nonsense around it, but all I will be worried about is the 90 minutes. It will be a tough place to go. They have good players who can hurt you, but we will think more about that after Portadown.”