Jim Magilton expecting Cliftonville's 'magnificent group of players' to bounce back from disappointment of Linfield defeat

The Reds had put together an unbeaten run of 14 matches prior to the Blues’ trip to Solitude, but David Healy’s side responded in perfect fashion to a shock 3-0 weekend loss against Coleraine thanks to goals from Kyle McClean, Daniel Finlayson and Chris McKee.

It means Linfield have leapfrogged Cliftonville into second place, siting two points ahead of the North Belfast outfit with eight games to go, while leaders Larne could extend their advantage at the top to four points once again by beating Glentoran on Friday evening.

The Windsor Park side have now beaten Magilton’s men on three occasions in the league this season, but the ex-Northern Ireland international is backing his squad to show their character in the run-in, starting with Saturday’s trip to Dungannon Swifts.

“In the next few days, there’ll be all sorts of questions and all sorts of scrutiny and all sorts of negativity – but not from me,” he told the club’s media channel. “At the end of the day, we lost a game of football and now we’ve got to bounce back.

"It’s more important to me that we front up and show the character and resilience that’s in the group. Let’s be very honest here – this group of players has been magnificent.

“We’ve had a setback. Linfield had a setback on Friday night and bounced back. I expect a similar response in terms of our character and resilience. We’re going to be asked questions and we have to stand up and be counted.

“There’s no reason for us to start doubting ourselves, no reason whatsoever.”

There were appeals for a Cliftonville free-kick in the lead up to Linfield’s first goal as Matthew Fitzpatrick collided with Patrick Burns before Rhys Annett nipped in front of Odhran Casey, who was trying to see the ball out of play, to tee up McClean, but Magilton felt they should have dealt with the situation more effectively.

“In the build up to the first goal, I think there may have been a foul by Fitzpatrick on Burns but you win some, you lose some and, let’s be honest, we should have dealt with it, end of story,” he added. “That’s a lesson that has to be learned very quickly – defend properly and then move on from that.

"Then they score two set pieces, which is something we’ve defended particularly well this season but tonight we didn’t.”