DEAN Shiels believes the Bannsiders are “so close to clicking” as they make the journey to league leaders Linfield tomorrow afternoon…

Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Shiels made the comments as he was asked on his reflection of the season to date as the Stripes have completed half of their Premiership fixtures so far.

Coleraine weren’t in action last weekend against Portadown due to adverse weather conditions, a decision which Shiels says the club accepted, but vowed that the squad have worked hard on the training pitch since then.

“I think we are progressing really well,” he said.

“We are really happy with how we’ve tried to gel the new team.

“We’ve seen loads of signs where we are building for the future and I think you can see that.

“We are so close to clicking and getting to where we want to be, but we know that takes time.

“With the foundations that we’ve built, there’s been unbelievable great work done on and off the pitch but it’s now about us progressing, strengthening in every window and progressing every year to get the club where we want to be.

“We have trained really hard this week, so without having had a game in 14 days, we’ve had to maybe slightly adjust training and work a bit harder.”

Coleraine are in Premiership action three times before the January transfer window opens and Shiels remarked that plans are under way to bring new arrivals at The Showgrounds.

He commented: “We are definitely looking to strengthen, without doubt.

“We worked extremely hard with the recruitment in the summer. I think we had six weeks to try and build a new squad.

“I think 18 left and 10 or 12 came in…and we were happy with the business we did.

“We’re by no means finished completing the squad. January gives us another window to try and strengthen again.

“There’s been hours and hours of work gone into that and we are looking to improve on the window coming up and in the summer.

“It’s structured and we’ve got a good plan in place, so hopefully that helps moving forward.”

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