Coleraine 'so close to clicking' for Dean Shiels heading into Linfield trip

Consistency remains elusive at the halfway point of the Sports Direct Premiership campaign, with Shiels’ squad posting seven wins and the same number of defeats across the first 19 fixtures.

Although only today’s hosts Linfield can boast a greater return in front of the net than Coleraine’s 32 scored, just the top-flight’s bottom three clubs – Carrick Rangers, Glenavon and Loughgall – have conceded more goals.

“I think we are progressing really well,” said Shiels on the official club website. “We are really happy with how we’ve tried to gel the new team.

“We’ve seen loads of signs where we are building for the future and I think you can see that.

“We are so close to clicking and getting to where we want to be, but we know that takes time.

“With the foundations that we’ve built, there’s been unbelievable great work done on and off the pitch but it’s now about us progressing, strengthening in every window and progressing every year to get the club where we want to be.

“We have trained really hard this week, so without having had a game in 14 days, we’ve had to maybe slightly adjust training and work a bit harder.”

Shiels also has targets in mind across the January transfer window as the next opportunity to build.

“We are definitely looking to strengthen, without doubt,” he said. “We worked extremely hard with the recruitment in the summer. I think we had six weeks to try and build a new squad.

“I think 18 left and 10 or 12 came in…and we were happy with the business we did.

“We’re by no means finished completing the squad.

"January gives us another window to try and strengthen again.

“There’s been hours and hours of work gone into that and we are looking to improve on the window coming up and in the summer.

“It’s structured and we’ve got a good plan in place, so hopefully that helps moving forward.”