Cliftonville assistant boss Gerard Lyttle says Larne are the club the Reds must aim to emulate as they prepare to host the Irish Premiership champions in Friday night’s big league encounter at Solitude.
The game, which will be live on the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport website, will be Larne’s last contest before they begin their Uefa Conference League campaign in Norway against Molde next Thursday.
“You’ve got to credit Larne for what they’ve achieved. It has been unbelievable and great for the league,” said Lyttle, who is manager Jim Magilton’s right-hand man.
Larne’s achievement in becoming the first Northern Ireland club to reach the league or group stages of a European competition has meant a fixtures backlog in the early part of their attempt to earn a third successive Irish Premiership title.
Lyttle joked that he has “absolutely” no sympathy for Larne’s predicament but made clear his regard for the feat achieved by Tiernan Lynch’s side.
“I’m quite envious of them in terms of where they are.
“It’s something that we as a club and coaching staff and players look to see if we can keep doing what we’re doing, hopefully one day we can get to the great heights of where Larne are.”
Cliftonville go into Friday’s contest after a stuttering recent run of league form which has seen them lose two of their last four games – including last weekend’s 3-2 reverse against rejuvenated Ballymena United.
Despite that, the Reds still occupy third place in the table – three points behind leaders Linfield – with Larne down in eighth place and six points off the pace but having two games in hand on the Blues.
Asked to comment on last weekend’s Ballymena display, Lyttle responded: “We were really disappointed as a group, not just the staff. The players were disappointed and rightly so
“We have to credit Ballymena. They had a really good gameplan in terms of setting out and frustrating us and slowing the game down.”
Despite that, Lyttle insists there is no sense of gloom and doom around Solitude going into Friday’s match, pointing to the display four days earlier in the goalless draw against Linfield.
“We played some really good football in the game against Linfield. The way Jim wants us to play and the way the players can play.
“I thought we dominated possession without overly threatening the opposition goal. We’re a work in progress. We’re putting in an awful lot of work.”
Magilton expects a tactically different affair to last weekend’s Ballymena contest, where he said Jim Ervin’s side “sat off us a little bit”.
“I think Larne will play similarly to how we play in terms of pressing and trying to dominate possession.
“It’s a game we’re looking forward to and we always like to test ourselves. We’ll learn so much from it in terms of where we are as a group.”
Reds midfielder Rory Hale, who returned to action over the last 10 days after missing the early part of the campaign because of an ankle injury, says the Solitude outfit must aim to do better in the games against other title contenders after faltering in those crucial contests last season.
“We let ourselves down last season in the big games against Larne and Linfield which ultimately put us out of the league title race,” said Hale, who will be hoping to get more prolonged action on Friday night after playing a combined 40 minutes in the games against Linfield and Ballymena.
“To have a real crack at the league title this season we need to address that and start taking points off teams around us.”
Larne go into the game with manager Tiernan Lynch being linked with the managerial vacancy at Scottish Premiership side St Johnstone.
