![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/saginstory.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s difficult playing teams back-to-back. It\u2019s happened to us a couple of times this season with Glentoran, Carrick and now Glenavon, it\u2019s a bit frustrating.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hale believes that the target \u2013 given the squad depth \u2013 should be cementing themselves as a top six club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things, you will set up how you set up, you\u2019ll analyse the opposition but it\u2019s just about grinding out results at the end of the day now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to come away with a couple of good results, cement ourselves in the top six and then go on a good run in the Irish Cup\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hale saw the positives of their weekend trip to Glentoran falling victim to the weather, with himself and other team-mates pushing to get back to fitness after illness and injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be the best of both worlds, sometimes after defeat you just can’t wait for the next game to put things right and wait for the next game to try and get a better performance or get out of the rut,\u201d he admitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the positives, we\u2019ve had another ten days of recovery in the legs. The boys have played lots, and lots of games over the last few weeks \u2013 Saturday-Tuesdays \u2013 and especially a tough Christmas period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lost some key players, and boys have probably had to play a lot more than they should. Lads like myself haven\u2019t probably played as much in the last few weeks with illness and injuries. It was probably a good little break to try and get boys back to fitness.”<\/p>\n
The downside though is the Reds face seven fixtures and three midweek games in February, with the skipper feeling that they have lost momentum due to the postponements throughout the campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be mental and it\u2019s just unfortunate that it keeps happening to us.\u00a0I think we were already three or four games behind some of the teams trying to catch up with us in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t afford any more games being called off, it is stretching the squad as it is. It\u2019s quite difficult to get a run of momentum as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might get a bad result or a good result and then you’re waiting for the next game a week later and it gets called off, then you\u2019re waiting another week. It\u2019s just frustrating at the minute.”<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/inpho_02836830.jpg\")
2![\"Gallery\"\/](\"https:\/\/belfastmedia.com\/assets\/photo-camera-0ab63d5b98cfc023dd278cfae228c6cfafc9197855177865df5d8229c44c995a.svg\")
<\/p>\n
Rory Hale believes the fixture congestion is tough for the Reds <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With the transfer window ticking to its conclusion, Hale is hopeful to see new faces come in the door to supplement the squad following Odhran Casey and Jack Keaney\u2019s recent departures and the loss of Eric McWoods through injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need bodies in the door, there is no question about it,\u201d Hale insists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lost arguably our best player of the season and then our second best player of the season in the same window \u2013 it would probably dampen Man City nevermind Cliftonville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite difficult for us now to get that level of quality back in. Kyle [McClelland] has been in the league for a couple of seasons now. Hopefully he can come in and hit the ground running and steady the ship a bit.”<\/p>\n
Cliftonville face the away trip to face Lurgan side Glenavon on Saturday, and after almost two weeks’ of rest, the Reds will look to reignite their positive form once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLIFTONVILLE captain Rory Hale is urging his team-mates to focus on themselves and grind out results as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[32598,32601,32602,49,48,8515,44,32596,32599,32597,6987,561,32600,457,82],"class_list":["post-442704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-andersonstown-news","tag-andytown-news","tag-belfast-media-group","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-comment","tag-news","tag-news-belfast","tag-north-belfast-news","tag-north-of-ireland","tag-northern-ireland","tag-soccer","tag-south-belfast-news","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}