Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE JUST HAVE TO DOG IT OUT
Healy happy as Blues continue to clean up their mess
LINFIELD might have made a dog’s dinner out of the first part of the season but they’re determined to clean up their mess as soon as possible.
A bizarre situation during the first half of their comeback win over Glenavon at the weekend saw the game halted for several minutes as a member of the Windsor Park groundstaff was summoned to deal with an issue with the playing surface.
Blues boss David Healy explained: “I don’t know how it wasn’t identified before the game but there was dog poo on the pitch.
“I’m surprised it wasn’t spotted in the warm-up.
“Someone identified that there was something on the pitch and there was genuine concern.”
A bigger worry for the former Northern Ireland star was how many chances his side missed before eventually turning it around against a bold and determined Glenavon side, who took the lead early in the second half through a wonderful Micheal Glynn strike.
Daniel Finlayson started the revival, ramming home a closerange equaliser before Robbie Mcdaid made up for squandering earlier chances by firing a low bullet into the net for an 86th minute winner.
Healy said: “I’ve been a centre-forward - we miss chances.
“It’s about how you react to the next chance that comes along.
“There were two or three times that we should have scored, but we got there in the end.
“I would have liked to have found a way through sooner,
we found ourselves chasing the game.
“But I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
“We were slick, we moved the ball and I thought we were sensational.”
Yet while Healy (inset) was clearly delighted with the application of his players, he was much more coy about their prospects of winning the title for the fourth time in a row.
With three wins and a draw from their last four league matches, the Blues have got themselves back on track after a poor run of results left them way off the pace.
But for the manager, it’s a case of one step at a time.
“We’re going to need to show a lot of character. Basically, in people’s minds, we’re out of challenging for the title.
“People are talking about other teams so we’re trying to be the best of the rest at the minute.
“We’re trying to chip away at some of the other top teams and over the coming weeks we’ll continue to try to do that.
“We’re behind at the minute, we’re trying to close the gap.”