Carrick Rangers v Glentoran
Tuesday 13th February 2018, 7.45pm.
On Tuesday evening we visit the Belfast Loughshore Hotel Arena for the Danske Bank Premiership match rearranged from January 20th. This will be our fourth meeting of the season with Carrick Rangers.
Our record in this fixture so far has been very poor for a team chasing a top six position. In August we drew 1-1 in the league at the Oval when an early opener from Ross Redman was equalised immediately after half time by former Glens U20 player Lee Chapman. In October Carrick knocked us out of the Bet McLean League Cup with a Mark Edgar free kick separating the teams. Immediately before Christmas, we took a first half lead with an Eric Foley header but failed to hold out, drawing 1-1 following an injury time equaliser, again from Chapman.
Carrick host us on Tuesday in eleventh place in the table having just ended a seventeen game run without a win in all competitions, including fifteen defeats, with a 4-0 home win over Ards. Nothing short of a victory should be the aim on Tuesday, particularly as we need to follow the recent win over Ballinamallard with a further significant improvement in our form against teams below us in the table.
Carrick Rangers were active in the January window with the signings of Ralph Kottoy and Julien Anau from Larne, ex Glens striker Darren Henderson (Portadown), Damian McNulty (Finn Harps), Brendan Glackin (Radcliffe Borough) and the loan signings of Eamonn Scannell (Linfield), Ryan Nimick (Crusaders) and of course the deadline loan of Jonathan Smith from ourselves. Smith – who scored the opener on his debut v Ards - is of course ineligible to play in this match.
Gary Haveron: “Willie Garrett and John McGuigan were both left out on the physio’s advice on Saturday. They’ve both played a lot on heavy pitches since coming back from bad injuries and they weren’t able to train last Thursday. We need John’s energy and Willie’s grit and we’ve two very important league games this week so they’ll both come back into contention for a start at Carrick.
Everyone else is available so we may make a few changes over the next few games. Knowlesy worked really hard and did well when he came on at Seaview. Also Robbie gave us a real boost. He was energetic, ran at the Crues’ defence and gave us a lot of what we’d lacked up to that point. He came on after a while on the bench with a point to prove and I thought he really proved it. Not just with his goal but with his all round performance. He deserves a chance after that so he might get it tomorrow night."
