CLIFTONVILLE manager Jim Magilton is pleased that there were no cup distractions this week as his side take on champions Larne on Friday evening.

The Inver Reds make the trip to Solitude (7.45pm kick-off) looking to maintain an unbeaten league run against the Solitude side which stretches back to their last defeat on New Year’s Day, 2023.

Meanwhile, Reds’ boss Magilton acknowledges he needs to iron a few issues with his team on the back of their disappointing defeat to Ballymena United at the weekend and believes the preparation ahead of Friday’s fixture will be tough for his players.

“We definitely need a full week with them [the players],” he admitted.

“There are a few things that we need to iron out. Obviously, we face Larne who are on the back of another great win against Glentoran. We know the challenge we are going to face. It will be a tough week us.”

Despite an improvement in performance after falling behind and going in level at the break, Magilton didn’t feel they deserved the three points and believes there is soul-searching to be done.

“We raised our tempo and raised our quality in the second half,” he recalled.

“We’d a real chance of coming here and maybe coming away with three points, but we didn’t deserve it. Ballymena deserved to win the game and we didn’t. We didn’t do enough and there is a lot of soul-searching to do be done before Friday night.”

The Reds’ boss made one enforced alteration to his squad at the weekend and was at loss to explain their below-par showing and the failure to adequately test Sky Blues keeper Sean O’Neill given the quality on the field.

“We pride ourselves on team selection and allowing people to continue to play,” Magilton insisted.

“Ryan Curran was a loss. He was ill and obviously couldn’t take part. Maybe in hindsight, I’d make changes, but you just want to continue the momentum.

“We had momentum as they had momentum going into the game. Nothing suggested that we were going to turn up and play in the manner that we did.

“Possession, whilst it’s something that we pride ourselves on, we never forced a save from the keeper in the second half, which is mindboggling.

“To think of the quality that we have in our team, to think that Sean [O’Neill] hasn’t had a save to make. Our quality in the final third was really, really poor.

“Kind of way after the Lord Mayor’s show, where you’re going up against Linfield on the back of them losing a game. Going into this game thinking, we have to kick on here, we have to really lay down a marker. We were so far off it, it was unbelievable.”