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Gareth Fullerton

Cliftonville boss Paddy McLaughlin reads riot act to "complacent" Reds

Paddy McLaughlin read the riot act after Cliftonville's late collapse against Glenavon on Saturday.

The Reds threw away a two-goal lead to drop valuable points in this season's title race.

Cliftonville led 2-0 with goals from Ronan Hale and Joe Gormley, but Glenavon offered a rousing response to earn a 2-2 draw in North Belfast.

Read more: Watch: Dungannon Swifts player scores wonder goal from inside own half

McLaughlin's misery was compounded with the sending off of Odhran Casey for a foul on Peter Campbell in front of the dugouts.

The angry Reds boss says some of his players became "comfortable and complacent" which proved a "recipe for disaster" in the latter stages of the game.

He told the club's website: “It’s clearly two points dropped and we’re bitterly disappointed

“I think in the first half, we’d two or three great chances. In the second half we had two or three great chances and we’ve taken two out of the five or six we’ve created and, when you look back, up until the 80th minute we were quite comfortable.

“The downfall was that people got complacent, people got comfortable and a couple of individual errors led to chaos in the last 10 minutes. That can happen. When people get comfortable and complacent, it’s a recipe for disaster.

“We didn’t put our foot on the ball and there wasn’t any kind of game management at all."

The draw leaves Cliftonville in fourth spot in the Premiership, five points off leaders Glentoran having played a game more.

McLaughlin says his players will "take the hit" as he urged them to learn from Saturday's disappointment.

He added: “We’ll learn from it, we’ll deal with it and we’ll take the hit. When people get comfortable and complacent with their position on the pitch, there’s no place for it at this Club.

"If I just let that happen, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly.”

Reflecting on Casey's red card, McLaughlin said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s a yellow card, he’s taken him out and has stopped a promising attack.

“The referee had the yellow card out and decided 30 seconds later it was a red card.

“We need to clear up the role of the Fourth Official – they’re either there to influence decisions or they’re not because when you call for something, they tell you it’s not their call but obviously something has happened down the mic that’s changed the referee’s mind from a yellow card to a red card.

“That’s just something I’d like cleared up. There were a few decisions we called for during the game where the Fourth Official has said it’s nothing to do with him and, if that’s the case, what’s his involvement in that decision?”

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