'We'll turn it round'

The Blues have now picked up just one point from their last eight Carling Premiership matches but will get a break from the league campaign this Saturday when they host Cliftonville in the Co-Operative Insurance Cup third round (kick-off 3pm).

The game at Mourneview Park will, Quinn hopes, help get his side back on track as they aim to reach the next round and kick-start their season before they return to the league campaign.

“The break from the league is maybe not a bad thing for us,” he said.

“The plan will be to go into the next round and we’ll be very determined to do so. We badly need a lift and I’m very determined now. We’ll be better equipped for the forthcoming game. I’ll make sure my players are going to play football the way I want them to play it and we’re going to turn this around. We’ll be aiming to pick up points in the league and get a bit of cup success as well.

“We’re as good as anyone in the league but at the moment we’re not getting any luck at all and we’re making mistakes defensively.”

The gaffer is also hoping that his side can get some revenge on the Reds after they snatched an injury-time victory at Mourneview Park in the league just two weeks ago.

“They got away with a lot against us a couple of weeks ago,” he began.

“I feel very hard-done-by in that 2-1 defeat so hopefully we can do better this time and get a bit of a Cup run going to give us a bit of a lift for the league campaign.

“They had a good win against Glentoran on Saturday and it will give them a confidence boost. I’ll take quite a few things from our last game against them though. Number one, we sat a wee bit deep and let them come at us. We show teams too much respect at times. We have to go out and stick the ball away and take the pressure off ourselves, rather than going behind and having to get ourselves back into it. It’s been very frustrating but there’s no reason why we can’t progress to the next round.”

And in order to try and change that frustrating run, Quinn will be going with his strongest possible line-up for Saturday’s game: “Whatever my strongest starting XI is, I’ll be going with it. It wouldn’t be right to throw youngsters in now, I’ll be going with experience and we’ll battle our way out of this.”