Wednesday 12 April
Kick Off 7.45pm
Tomorrow evening we cross the city to the National Stadium to face Linfield in the sixth “Big Two” match of the season.
With Friday’s 0-0 draw at home to Crusaders and Larne’s win at Solitude on Tuesday having left Linfield ten points behind leaders Larne (with only twelve points left to play for albeit with a game in hand) the Blues are under huge pressure to stay in striking distance before the sides face off at Inver Park in the penultimate game of the season.
While Healy’s men have regularly swept aside the bottom 7 clubs this season, their results against the current top 5 have been much less impressive; scoring only 7 goals in 13 fixtures to date and dropping a potential 26 points.
The Glens have enjoyed the better of the league meetings this season; a pair of 3-0 victories at The National Stadium and the Bet McLean Oval Oval sandwiching a last gasp 2–1 for Linfield at the Oval on Boxing Day. Midfielder Bobby Burns in particular has shone in these games; 3 of his current tally of seven goals being scored in games against Linfield.
Former Northern Ireland striker Kyle Lafferty missed out on the game against the Crues, while Eetu Vertainen could be in line to start up front in place of Ethan Devine and experienced midfielders Kyle McClean and Stephen Fallon will be hoping to step up from the substitutes bench.
Rodney McAree; “I’d say Friday evening at Larne was the most disappointing performance since I took over as Manager. Our approach to such a big game was very poor. Larne started positively and we allowed them to boss us and push us around for that first half hour. There’s no excuse for that. I felt the half time subs helped and that Niall, Junior and Hrvoje did better for us, but despite that we didn’t look like breaking through. I came away very unhappy, particularly for our supporters who travelled in great numbers and were in great voice. They were entitled to expect a lot better.
A big Two match is a great game to use to recover after a poor performance. We need to bounce back immediately as we still have a chance of second and automatic European qualification. So we need to go out from the start with clear intent and to keep that momentum for as long as we’re in that race. Aidan is still struggling to make it and Marcus picked up a knock at Larne so we’re not sure about him. But we’ve good players who can come in if necessary and I’d have confidence in them.”
