Fighting form

Paddy McLaughlin says that Cliftonville must find ruthlessness across the board as they approach this evening’s Danske Bank Premiership encounter with Linfield.

The Reds travel to Windsor Park on the back of a deflating 2-2 draw with Glenavon that saw the concession of two late goals derail what had looked set to be a comfortable victory and McLaughlin is well aware that similar complacency will be clinically seized upon by tonight’s hosts.

“There’s no better game to bounce back in that going to the home of the Champions,” he smiled.

“Windsor Park’s a big setting with a big pitch that suits our play down to the ground. There’s no place for sucking your thumb in self-pity, we’ve got to be prepared for probably our toughest game of the season because that’s what Linfield will throw at us.

“It’ll be a tough one. It’s two sides working their socks off to try and find their best form and hopefully we can find ours before they find theirs.”

In addition to his obvious frustration at dropping two points at the weekend, McLaughlin was also disappointed that Joe Gormley was unable to mark his historic 250th goal for the Club with a win.

“You’ve got to be ruthless at both ends,” he added.

“You’ve got to be ruthless to keep clean sheets and you’ve got to be ruthless in converting your chances. We do create chances that can put teams to bed and if we do that more regularly, we’ll kill games off a lot sooner and not be in a position where we’re trying to see it out for the last five or 10 minutes.

“We’d like to have celebrated Joe’s 250th goal with a win. He came on looking lively and dangerous, he’s worked his socks off and we’re disappointed we’ve let him down a bit but he was as disappointed we lost the points as anybody else.”

Linfield v Cliftonville
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