Irish Premiership: Linfield ‘rubbish’ in Cliftonville draw – David Healy

Linfield boss David Healy said his side were “rubbish” in their 0-0 draw against Cliftonville on Sunday.

The Blues failed to trouble Reds stopper Peter Morrison, with Matthew Fitzpatrick firing wide and Sam Roscoe heading over their best two chances in a cagey game in north Belfast.

The champions have now drawn back-to-back league games and are 11 points behind leaders Coleraine with three games in hand, with Healy calling for his side to re-discover their quality in the final third.

“Rubbish,” was Healy’s initial assessment of the game.

“I think in terms of a spectacle, both teams were poor. I’m sure if I spoke to Jim (Magilton), he’d probably say the same. The disappointing thing is that when you look at the attacking quality supposedly on paper, we never showed it today.

“It’s not always the forward players. Our attacking players include full-backs, midfielders, wide players. Collectively, we just didn’t deliver. We work on a lot of things in training, but we didn’t really see that come through today, which is frustrating.”

Healy said that he had “no complaints about the effort” from his side but does have “concerns about decision-making in the final third”.

“Effort and attitude were fine, but our quality in the attacking areas wasn’t good enough. If we’d been a bit sharper from the middle third to the final third, we could have won the game,” he added.

“A performance like that, on TV and in front of a good crowd, makes it plain to see that we lack that killer instinct, that cutting edge. That’s why the game ended goalless for us.”