The split is within touching distance, the pressure is mounting and a three-way title race is still a three-way title race.
That said, an alarming dip in form for Linfield at precisely the wrong moment has thrown a fresh spanner in the works. Larne and Cliftonville continue to motor on having gone 36 games unbeaten in league play between them, however David Healy’s charges have suffered an unwanted bout of the blues.
Travelling to Solitude on the back of a third consecutive winless match in the league, the nature of their 3-0 defeat to a Coleraine side that had lost eight of their previous nine – they shipped thrice in the last 25 minutes and were sent back to south Belfast with a sucker punch – will have felt especially bruising.
Beforehand, Linfield let a last-gasp Aaron Prendergast equaliser slip into Chris Johns’ net when they were forced to settle for one point rather than three at Glenavon, while in the most recent home outing, Healy’s boys suffered a shock reversal at the hands of Dungannon Swifts from an initial advantageous position.
A single point from nine – and with Jim Magilton’s red-hot Reds to come in a season-defining battle on Tuesday night.
Where the Blues will take hope from is that Cliftonville, despite having a points haul against teams fifth-placed or below that is a solitary home draw with Loughgall in September away from perfection, are winless in seven showdowns against fellow top-four foes.
Glentoran’s Gibson Cup race is long run, though the Reds have picked up just a couple of points in three meetings with Warren Feeney’s panel to date, and the Windsor Park men and Larne have profited from taking a total 10 points from 12 in clashes with their north Belfast challengers in 2023/24.
However, don’t come under the illusion that the set-up Magilton has cultivated is in any way weak-minded.
The former Northern Ireland international midfielder and his assistant, former Reds supremo Gerard Lyttle, have fashioned a winning culture in the first season of their Solitude reign, and with Kieran Harding confirmed as the new chairman of Ireland’s oldest football club and the hybrid model with a view to a fully professional set-up firmly on track, a feelgood factor is in the air off the Cliftonville Road after a first dose of scepticism when the duo were installed.
One gets the sense, though, that they will need to turn over one or both of their title rivals if they aim to seal a first league crown since the late, great Tommy Breslin’s second title a little under a decade ago.
The Reds will sniff opportunity against a wounded Linfield knowing that victory will fire them above Larne, who they entertain on Monday, March 25 in a match that Sky Sports will beam out, and into top spot on goal difference. They are the Premiership’s top scorers (69) after a late Joe Gormley brace followed up earlier finishes by Rory Hale and Sam Ashford in the 4-2 triumph over Glenavon.
They trailed 1-0 and were reeled in for 2-2, but that’s the beauty about Magilton’s Cliftonville; they just do not know when they are beaten, and the classic predatory instincts of Joe The Goal nudged them over the line.
That’s the kind of quality that has made Healy’s Linfield a team of champions, and the mind game is sure to play a central part in proceedings here.
It’s for that reason why, regardless of the 56-time record champions’ recent blip, they can’t be counted out – and they’ve already won at this venue when a Chris McKee finish did the damage back in October.
Cliftonville will also have four away days in the split; away to all bar Glentoran as it stands, there’s some licence for change should Coleraine be usurped but, make no mistake, it will be a gruelling finale.
Nights like these are where so much can be won or lost, and they’ll have to borrow a mindset that has seen their counterparts win five titles under their current boss.
For both sides, it’s just about showing their steel to achieve a positive outcome.
Featured image from INPHO/Philip Magowan.
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