Paddy McLaughlin determined to freshen things up at Cliftonville

The Reds remain in fifth place following the 2-0 defeat, but are tied on 13 points  with Glenavon and Coleraine, who both have a game in hand.

McLaughlin feels now is the time to take action in a bid to turn things around.

“I think the team needs freshened up a bit,” said the Cliftonville boss.

“It will be disappointing to break up such a good bunch of lads, but we’re not here to be a good bunch of lads, we’re here to be successful and win games.

“The club isn’t in the position where we can just open up the cheque book and sign whoever we want, so we might need to move a couple out to bring a couple in, if that’s the case so be it.

“It’s frustrating because I know how good these boys are. I see them three nights a week and I see the quality they have.

“Up until we went behind against Coleraine I thought we were excellent.

“We can’t keep going home disappointed after every game, the club’s too big and we’re too good a side to be coming home disappointed on a regular basis.

“If we have to replace players then so be it.”

McLaughlin felt his side had the better of the first half at Solitude and they could have been in front but for a superb save from Gareth Deane to deny Ryan Curran.

But two goals from substitute James McLaughlin left the Reds boss very disappointed in the end.

“It’s so frustrating and so disappointing,” he said.

“In the first half we were probably the better team, we were in the final third, we were getting there with our balls.

“It seemed like it was going to be a matter of time before we scored.

“We started the second half in the same way, the pattern continued.

“Both sides played decent football but I felt we were better than they were, but once the goal goes in it just deflated the whole team.

“We need to learn to deal with disappointment better than that because it’s not enough to play well and stay in the game until you go behind, because if you go behind early on what are you going to do for the rest of the game?

“The response for the players was disappointing, but until we went behind I thought we played some excellent football and I didn’t see us losing the game.

“Goals change games though. Curran has a great chance, Joe had a couple of half chances.

“The one chance they get comes from a sub who has just come on and nobody has picked him up. He’s the only man who is free in the box and he scores.

“The second goal comes from an individual error, those crazy decisions at key moments in the game costs us goals and costs us games.”