The Sky Blues - with three consecutive away victories to their name - started brightly and might have taken an early lead when David Cushley tested Alan Blayney from the edge of the area on 11 minutes while moments later Andy Smith flicked a header just wide.

Then, on 21 minutes, Darren Lockhart saw an acrobatic effort turned away for a corner and from the set piece Albert Watson was allowed a free header from six yards which failed to hit the target.

Linfield enjoyed the best chance of the half, however, when three minutes into added time Michael Gault teed Philip Lowry up on the edge of the area to send in a right-foot shot which beat Dwayne Nelson but came back off the crossbar.

United came close themselves two minutes after the interval when Orman Okunaiya pounced on a poor Noel Bailie back pass only to fail to beat Blayney in an attempt to take the ball past him.

Linfield did have the ball in the net five minutes later only for Paul Munster's header to be ruled out by the assistant referee who determined that it had gone out earlier in the move.

But the Blues eventually did make the breakthrough on 72 minutes when a Jim Ervin ball out of defence was knocked on by Munster into the path of Mark Miskimmin who duly beat Nelson into the bottom left hand corner.

They might have doubled their lead three minutes later only for United defender Lee Colligan to be on hand to clear a Munster effort from the right off the line.

United came closest to equalising with six minutes left but Lockhart sliced his shot in front of goal whilst under pressure from the Blues defence.