And what may concern the two bigger Belfast clubs is that the team from the north of the city are getting better.

Victory over Newry City at Solitude this evening (7.45pm) will see the Reds move to the front of the pack and although they will then have played a game more than Glentoran - who they are currently level with on 26 points - it will be up to their Championship rivals to knock Patterson's team off the summit.

" When we beat Coleraine 3-0 on Saturday it was the first time this season that we have clicked for the full 90 minutes," said Patterson.

"In other games we have maybe done that for 20 minutes, half an hour or half a game, but this time we performed for the entire game and besides getting the three points that was the most pleasing aspect of the game.

"Now we can go to the top of the table and that is a big incentive for everyone connected with the club.

"We know that it won't be easy against Newry City, we only have to look back a couple of months to when we played them in the CIS Cup quarter-finals to know that.

" We started slowly that night, found ourselves 2-0 down at half-time and hopefully the lessons have been learnt from that."

Question marks have been raised about the home form of a Cliftonville side who have won all five away league games, but have dropped points in two of their handful of home matches - albeit one of those was the opening clash against Linfield.

"In a few of our home games other teams have come, closed up at the back and made it hard for us," said Patterson.

"It is up to us to find a way to break them down and hopefully we can get the same results at home as we have done on our travels.