Ferguson wants more in attack after shoring up defence

Since tinkering with his set-up in an attempt to halt the flow of goals against United, Ferguson’s men have kept two successive clean sheets.

The flip side is that United have created little by way of attacking threat in scoreless draws against Glentoran and again at Portadown on Saturday.

“It’s another good point for us,” said Ferguson after the dull Shamrock Park stalemate.

“We’ve set up a system to stop conceding goals and it has worked in the last two games against two teams who should really be in the top six and who are in the semi-final of the Irish Cup.

I thought we did well and could have nicked it in the end when Tony Kane hit the bar and Gary Thompson, on another day, could have scored at the end.

“We’ve worked hard at that system and it has come up trumps again.

“We know how the back four and the two holding midfield players work defensively.

“We haven’t really had enough time to work at going forward but that is something we’ll work at over the summer, if we decide to keep this system, which will depend upon personnel, who’s at the club and who’s not.

“We had Gary Thompson, Allan Jenkins and Alan Teggart who are very much three attack-minded players supporting Gary Liggett and we have told those four players to go and join in when we go forward.

“It’s definitely a system that can work but going forward we need to be more clinical and tidier on the ball to make it work.

“We’re in the middle of a run of tough games but we have shown that if you work hard enough and get the players organised and disciplined that we can get results,” added Ferguson.