Ferguson pleased with his January signings

Ferguson is content with the business he completed in the busiest January transfer window of his time in charge at the Showgrounds.

The capture of Dublin-based Australian goalkeeper Tim Allen brought the number of new arrivals to four, after the earlier signings of Gary McCutcheon, Eamonn McAllister and Paddy McNally.

Allen’s move came on the recommendation of ex-Ballymena goalkeeper Dermot O’Neill, a former team-mate of Ferguson’s at Glenavon, who was also responsible for the signing of Aaron Shanahan last season.

“He comes very highly recommended. He’s 6’4 and has a big presence about him.

“He is an Australian, who has been playing in America and who has family in Ireland. He has played in America for the last three years and people who we know in Dublin got in contact with me so we brought him up to have a look at the Showgrounds and he was impressed.

“We have watched videos and he has looked good, now we’re looking forward to getting him up to training and getting him into contention to play.

“He was training with Shamrock Rovers and we had to move quite quickly to get him on board.

“He wants to play football at this level so hopefully we can get it over the line and have him available for this week.

“We will make sure we have it 100 per cent in writing from the IFA that he’s eligible to play because we’ve had our fingers burnt before.

Saturday’s defeat at Linfield also saw both winger McAllister and central defender McNally make their debuts and Ferguson was pleased with the contribution of both.

“I thought Paddy and the whoe back four did well in different parts of the game and hopefully there will be more to come from Paddy once he gets playing regularly.

“Having Paddy beside him also seemed to give Johnny Taylor a lift and I thought he was back to his best against Linfield.

“We trained for the first time on Thursday night and due to the weather we had to train indoors so it wasn’t a real training session as such but I thought the two of them complemented each other very well.

“I thought Eamonn was direct and trickey and got a couple of good balls into the box. He also brings a bit of pace into the team,” added Ferguson.