What is needed now is a strong response, and Healy knows the club’s fans will be demanding one – starting on Saturday at home to struggling Glenavon.
David Healy has blamed a lack of a cutting edge for Linfield dropping four points in their last two league games after starting the season with three straight wins. The champions lost 1-0 at Ballymena United on Tuesday night, hot on the heels of a 1-1 draw away to Glentoran when a Chris Shields’ penalty made up for a malfunctioning forward unit.
The failure to take their chances cost the Blues at the Ballymena Showgrounds, where a dominant start was undone by the home side scoring against the run of play through ex-Linfield star Matthew Clarke.
Healy didn’t try to hide his frustration afterwards, acknowledging that his players just haven’t been sharp enough over the last week.
“It was really disappointing, our level of performance,” said the Northern Ireland legend. “I can’t fault the players in terms of their effort but what we can be faulted on is our delivery into the box, the timing of our runs, our final decisions… we got none of that right.
“I lost count of how many balls we put into the box and we weren’t on the first ball or second ball, so that’s frustrating.
“We had one or two half chances to maybe take the lead, a little bit like at The Oval last Friday night.
“The first goal can be key at times and it proved so against Ballymena.
“The players kept going but we just couldn’t find solutions in the final third.
“You can dominate as much as you want but when you have a resolute defence and an experienced goalkeeper as Ballymena had…
“We didn’t work them hard enough in the final third. We emptied the bench with three or four attackers coming on after 60 minutes, we had a go but we just couldn’t’ come up with the level of quality we needed to get the equaliser.”
What is needed now is a strong response, and Healy knows the club’s fans will be demanding one – starting on Saturday at home to struggling Glenavon.
“We always look for a reaction, that’s the most important thing, when you do lose a game at this club it’s about your next game, your next performance.
“There’ll be an expectant crowd at Windsor.
“I saw Glenavon last week, I saw them at the start of the season, and they’ll be disappointed by their start to the season.
“So when teams come to Windsor, the players, supporters and staff see it as an opportunity to impress and go and play well so we’ll need to make sure that we’re better in the final third.”
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