McLaughlin’s control centre

Paddy McLaughlin was delighted with the level of control Cliftonville exerted upon last night’s League Cup semi-final victory over Ballymena United.

A first-half double from Ryan Curran and well-taken Joe Gormley strike shortly after the turnaround booked the Reds’ place in March’s decider with Coleraine and McLaughlin believes his players got the reward their efforts merited.

“It was a really professional, accomplished performance,” he said.

“From the first whistle to the last, I thought the boys were excellent, they carried out their jobs brilliantly. We controlled a lot of the game in the middle of the park and up top, there was real life about us there. We looked threatening every time we went forward. We got a clean sheet as well and I’m hard on the boys about conceding soft goals, so I’m delighted with the clean sheet.”

Despite being on top from the start, it took Ryan Curran’s 27th minute opener to really spark Cliftonville into life and the scrappy nature of the goal – which saw the striker convert after Paul O’Neill’s air-kick at a miscued Gormley cross – bore a degree of familiarity from the Manager’s perspective.

“That was like one of my goals, that’s the sort I used to score,” he joked.

“The game needed that goal. It was a bit of a slow start from both sides and we gave the ball away a bit sloppily by trying to force things early in the game and Ballymena backed off.

“They were happy to let us have a lot of the ball early on and you could see they’d obviously planned on catching us on the counter-attack because any time our own attack broke down, they got at us in numbers. We had to be aware of that but I think when we got the first goal, it settled us down and gave us a wee bit more confidence to be more adventurous – and when we play like that, you see what happens.”

Gormley’s finish seven minutes into the second-half all but secured the Reds’ place in the Final and McLaughlin had particular words of praise for how the home support ensured there was no threat of any complacency setting in during the remainder of the contest.

“I’ve got to mention the fans, they were superb again,” he added.

“It’s great to give them a Final because they deserve it and I’m sure they’re really looking forward to it.

“Whenever the game went flat, the fans raised the noise levels a couple of notches and the players responded to it, so hopefully they’ll do the same again on Saturday.”