It's going to be hard for Dean Shiels to change team, says Dungannon Swifts midfielder James Knowles

The Swifts collected an eye catching three points against Cliftonville last weekend as two late goals meant the Reds lost on home soil for the first time in the league in 14 months.

The victory was even more impressive due to the fact that the Swifts travelled to Solitude without ten players through illness or injury as they repeated their Irish Cup heroics against the same opposition.

Shiels called the success as one of the best results in the club’s history for the last two decades, however, he will now have to decide to stick or twist with team selection as several members of his squad are now available for the visit of David Healy’s men.

“It is going to be hard for Dean to change things up after last week’s victory,” Knowles said.

"It goes to show you that you can trust young players to go out and do their jobs against some of the best players in the division.

"I think five or six players who played in the Irish Cup win weren’t available for us last weekend, which just shows you how big a result that was.

"I have to give credit to our young players who were all fantastic, especially young Steven Scott who played in central midfield with me and I thought he was excellent.

“We knew Cliftonville would have a lot of the ball but we worked on hurting them in transition and our game plan worked well.”

Linfield travel to Stangmore Park after winning the BetMcLean Cup and then following that up with a 7-0 victory at home to Newry City.

Ex-Blues man Knowles knows the task in hand for the Swifts as they hope to add to their momentum ahead of the Irish Cup semi-final against Crusaders next week.

"We will be going into the game full of confidence after our two away wins against Cliftonville,” the 29-year-old added.

“However, we have been having good results one week and then not being able to follow that up the next.

“Linfield are obviously full of confidence themselves after lifting the BetMcLean Cup and then the big win against Newry, so we know it’s going to be tough.

"We had a fire in our belly after losing to Portadown before our Irish Cup quarter-final against Cliftonville and we knew what was at stake for the club if we could reach the last four, so thankfully we were able to do that.”

Seven points now separates Dungannon Swifts from bottom-placed Portadown as the fight for Premiership survival continues.

However, Knowles remarked that the Swifts camp will simply look after themselves in their bid to secure safety.

“I know everyone chats about looking over our shoulder or potentially catching Newry City, but we just concentrate on our own performance and results,” the ex-Blackburn Rovers trainee stressed.

“To be fair to Portadown, I think Niall Currie has done a brilliant job since he returned as manager and I thought they would get a result at home to Crusaders last weekend.

“However, for us to come away with all three points was a massive boost for us after our defeat at home to Carrick Rangers.”