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Steven Crawford

Oran Kearney reveals transfer target he hopes will help close gap at the top

Oran Kearney knows what he wants as he bids to close the gap on the the full-time teams next season.

Kearney has targeted four or five new additions who are better than what he already has at the club as he tries to "up the ante again".

Graham Kelly has already been added to the squad and the Bannsiders boss has earmarked several other new arrivals of a similar quality, but he admitted it is not easy.

Read more: 'What a signing this is!' - King hails capture of Glentoran midfielder

"It's tough and it's not easy. It's bespoke what we're looking for to get that star quality but Graham is one of those players that will absolutely bring a new and stronger dimension to us," he said.

"I don't think we need a huge amount of players this summer but hopefully for the four or five that we bring in, I want them all to be ideally better than the eleven players who played the most football for us last season.

"If I could bring in five players that are all on similar par or could be possibly better than five out of our 11 starters who played the most games, then surely that's going to raise the bar and the quality of the changing room, as well as the competition within that.

"I'm quite clear moving forward, we had a massive transition last summer, we were worried how we would come through that transition but we've ended up 11 points better off than the season before.

"I still feel we've probably let slip some wasteful points throughout the season, particularly in that early six or eight game spell at the start of the year when we were finding our feet and finding our identity again. Those points cost us a possibly better haul.

"We're by no means a finished article. Ideally a good four, possibly five players of as top end quality as we can get will be a real shot in the arm to everybody moving into next season.

"There's been a mountain of work that's been done at all levels of the club over the last few seasons and the infrastructure has greatly improved in relation to changing room, pitch and gym.

"There's been so much work that's gone on behind the scenes to raise the bar for the players on that side but now what we've got to do is go and match that and up the ante again to try and close that gap on those full-time teams.”

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