New Cliftonville boss Gray targets title
New Cliftonville manager Barry Gray believes he can help the club challenge for the Irish Premiership title.
His appointment at Solitude was officially confirmed last night.
"Cliftonville is one of the top clubs in the country. Therefore, at a bare minimum they should be challenging for every competition they're involved in. Any player will want to win the league, otherwise they won't play for me," he said.
With the club failing to make any impact on the top 3 in recent seasons, Gray believes the fans have the right to feel disappointed.
"This season was a tough one for Cliftonville and it hasn't reached the expectations. Obviously I've watched the last few games and it's easy to make a comment when you're sitting in the stand. But your opinion can change when you start to work with the players."
Gray believes his first challenge will be to boost the squad.
"We have a challenge to get in with the players now, reestablish that bond and ask why they want to play for Cliftonville. There are also key positions within the squad we need to fill out considerably."
"We need to freshen things up and there will be a fresh approach to our style of play. We will reassess things in terms of our formations. The formation we played with most of this season - I'm not sold on it."
Gray says his work will begin with player recruitment - but only if the right player becomes available.
"If I was manager here last season a lot of our groundwork would already be done and we would now be announcing new players. But what we won't do is sign players just for the sake of it."