Eddie Patterson hopes his side will have learned from their mistakes as they head across town to take on Linfield tonight.

The Cliftonville boss, who guided his team into the top six of the JJB Sports Premiership table at the weekend, is relishing the chance to makes amends for the one that got away.

A 2-1 defeat by Linfield at Solitude earlier in the month left a sour taste in the collective mouths of all those at the north Belfast club and Patterson hopes the visit south will offer some more comfort.

“Last week with the performance we put in and the chances we created we got nothing out of the game and that would have deflated a lot of teams,” he stressed. “But there’s a great spirit among them and I’ve said that before. On Tuesdays and Thursdays at training they’ve been digging in and we knew from second to bottom a few weeks ago you make your own luck at that end of the table.

“That comes from hard graft. The injuries haven’t helped us, but we don’t mention that too much in the changing room. There’s a bit of slagging of the senior boys that are coming back that they won’t get back in again and that banter is good for the spirit going out onto the park.

“It was a productive weekend for us, we look forward to Linfield now at Windsor Park and if we pick up something from that who’s to say what might happen over the coming weeks. Although I thought we were the better side against them, in that we did create the better chances but at the end of the day a football game’s about putting the ball in the net and taking your chances.

“Hopefully we’ve learned from that. We created a few on Saturday and took them and hopefully that carries on.”

Two men on target against Ballymena United were Chris Scannell and Mark Holland, and another goal for the Reds skipper would take him to the century mark. Reaching that target against the Blues would be quite a feat and a richly deserved one according to his boss.

“He has been a superb servant, hence the reason I made him captain this season with Liam [Fleming’s] absence through illness,” Patterson said.

“He’s got a great attitude, it rubs off on the other players and he’s a great leader and scores goals. I think he’s on 18 goals for the season and I think, last season, if he’s scored the goals he has this, we would have been running away with the league.”