Europa Conference League: Linfield boss David Healy aiming for what he felt was impossible

Healy had warned before the first leg in Riga that the strength and physicality of RFS was something Linfield had to cope with, and they proved that with the first goal they scored from a corner.

Ahead of Thursday’s second leg, Healy, who will take charge of his 350th match in charge of Linfield, said his side will not be over-cautious, but that they need to be wary of the visitors’ counter-attacks.

“We’ll need to take care of set-plays, we will need to be better and we will need to be tighter,” he explained.

“They will be dangerous on the counter-attack. They play with the two wide players who don’t always track back. We will need to be wary that we are not emptying the middle of the pitch or that our full-backs are playing too high, without sounding like we are going to play cautiously, because we won’t.

“We will put the squeeze on, try and get the ball back and put pressure on them high up the pitch. Something that our players have been good at is managing the game by themselves. We have got good experience in there and we expect those players, who have been in the trenches before, to come out fighting. I am sure they will.”

Healy added that key defender Jimmy Callacher could return to the squad following an injury while Jordan Stewart and Niall Quinn are in contention. However Conor Pepper is injured and will miss the second leg.

Asked about what a win would mean for Healy’s place in the history of Linfield managers, he was philosophical in his response.

“When I first took the job, I spoke to David Jeffrey and described my role as wanting to make an already successful football club successful again. Linfield have always had somebody better.

“I will never be here as long as David Jeffrey or Roy Coyle, and I’m never going to have the same success that they had in terms of the huge collection of trophies that they have.

“Do I feel privileged and honoured? Absolutely, every day I am privileged to still be Linfield manager. To be given the opportunity now to have a full-time team, we now have this opportunity to qualify and we want to grasp that.”