Tomorrow evening we are off to the Loughview Leisure Arena to face Carrick Rangers in the match originally postponed on December 16th.
Saturday’s 3-1 win at basement side Portadown has pushed Carrick Rangers into seventh place and puts Stuart King’s side in the box seat to take the final European Playoff place as we rapidly approach the league split. The foundation to Rangers’ success has been their solid form at Taylor’s Avenue, with seven wins recorded from fifteen league games there to date. Those wins include the scalps of both Linfield and Crusaders and they also held Cliftonville to a 3-3 draw back in January.
Goals have been spread around the team this year with midfielders Lloyd Anderson, David Cushley, Andrew Mitchell and Kyle Cherry all chipping in to supplement the 15 in total provided by strikers Curtis Allen and Emmett McGuckin. January signing from Loughgall Nedas Maciulaitis is also starting to find his feet at IPL, after netting a brace against the Ports.
Our one meeting with Carrick so far this season took place in October at the Bet McLean Oval when the goals were spread five ways in our 5-0 win.
Rodney McAree: “The Crusaders performance and result on Saturday was very disappointing all round. Our performance was far from what I expect from my team as we needed more all over the pitch, but ultimately we lacked any quality in the final third. Crusaders man marked Conor and no one stepped up to cover him. It was a poor way to miss out on an Irish Cup run and I told the players exactly what I felt after the final whistle.
Carrick Rangers are having an exceptional season, particularly at home. There’s a great bond and unity among them so we know they’ll give us a battle tomorrow night, probably something similar to Saturday. We’ll need to be a lot more up for that and to make sure they’re in for a battle as well. The important thing is for us to get back to winning ways so all the players need to show the necessary hunger and spirit to achieve that.
We’ll be without Shay, He took a bad shoulder knock in the first half on Saturday and I felt he played on bravely until he got to the point where he couldn’t lift his arm. We’ll also need to make late calls on Rory and Hrvoje who are carrying knocks. Niall McGinn is probably still a week or so away.”
