Dungannon Swifts have the chance to make amends says Kris Lindsay

Lindsay was left disappointed by the manner of the loss, especially after their excellent win over Coleraine in the previous game.

Despite the disappointment though Lindsay said that his team can’t afford to dwell on the defeat and have an opportunity to make amends against the Sky Blues.

“That’s the good thing about football you always have an opportunity pretty quickly to make amends,” he said.

“We have got that on Saturday against Ballymena, another difficult, difficult game and tonight’s result puts an added pressure on it.

“It’s a game we have to embrace and one we have to get up for. We’ll try and get the boys heads up, we can’t dwell on it.

“We said after the Glentoran result (5-1defeat), you can’t dwell on these things and we’ll be looking for a response. That’s what we’ll be looking for on Saturday.

“We might shake things up, we have a few boys missing but I thought we looked a bit leggy for some reason throughout the game so it’s something we might look to.”

The manner of the defeat to Portadown left Lindsay smarting.

He pointed out that his side cannot afford to concede soft goals.

“It was extremely disappointing and we got what we deserved,” said the Swifts supremo.

“We can’t afford to concede goals like the first two against any team in this league, they were so soft from two set-pieces.

“I thought the first half was a non-event and we conceded a really poor goal at a really bad time.

“I thought our overall performance was poor, I thought our energy levels were poor, our quality on the ball was poor, obviously our defending at set-pieces were poor and it was miles away from where we need to be.

“It’s something we need to address.

“We, as a group, took the plaudits for the result against Coleraine, for the game against Cliftonville and we haven’t got anywhere near that tonight.

“It’s something we need to address and something we need to learn from.

“You can’t pick up your performances and produce performances against the top teams in this league and expect to turn up and play against everyone else because if you do that you’ll end up getting beat.

“That’s what happened to us on Tuesday night.”