Danske Bank Premiership: Cliftonville 0 Coleraine 2
CLIFTONVILLE manager Paddy McLaughlin intends to use the enforced Christmas break as an opportunity to address the club’s increasingly stuttering season.
Saturday evening’s home defeat to Coleraine left the Reds 13 points behind league leaders Larne, having lost six of their opening 11 games in the Danske Bank Premiership. Substitute James McLaughlin broke the deadlock for the Bannsiders 10 minutes after half-time and sealed the win after dispossessing Garry Breen on 84 minutes.
With the North’s latest lockdown set to preclude sport at all levels for a week from St Stephen’s Day the Irish League’s traditional Christmas fixture list is off, giving McLaughlin a chance to address what he thinks is off in his squad.
“We’ve now got a break without any matches over Christmas, so we’ll use that to talk things through and work on what’s been going wrong together as a group,” the Derry man said.
“Hopefully we can iron a few things out, give some injured players time to heal and return with much better performances when we do come back.”
In addition, McLaughlin has decided it is time to deploy Cliftonville’s limited resources in the January transfer window.
“We have good bunch of lads here and it would be a shame to break this group up, but we’re not here to be a good bunch of lads – we’re here to win games and be successful and that’s not happening,” he added.
“We’re not in a position where we can just go and open the chequebook, so any players that do come in will probably mean boys heading out the door at the other end to balance things up.
“None of us want it to come to that but we can’t just keep on being frustrated at losing games. We can’t keep sending ourselves and our supporters home unhappy every other week, we can’t stay in this routine because this is Cliftonville – this club’s far too big and important for that. It matters to too many people.”
With the annual St Stephen’s Day derby with Crusaders and the December 29 clash with Glentoran now both off, the Reds are due to return to action at Dungannon Swfits on Saturday, January 2.
