We travel to Carrickfergus on Saturday looking to arrest our last two poor performances and get back to winning ways.
Carrick were widely tipped to finish comfortably in mid table, after making a number of impressive summer signings, but have found themselves in 11th place after a difficult start to the campaign, which has seen them collect only 7 points from their first 9 games and concede 26 goals, the highest number in the division.
Former Glentoran striker Danny Purkis and Captain David Cushley have been the main goal threat for Stuart King’s side, netting 4 and 3 respectively of their 9 scored so far. Along with Purkis, former Glens goalkeeper Ross Glendinning and defender Joe Crowe are likely to start for Rangers, while Curtis Allen will vie with Emmett McGuckin for the striking berth alongside him.
In last season’s games at Taylor’s Avenue, both were played in March of this year and both ended in 4 goal margin victories for Rod McAree’s side; a rare Rhys Marshall double helped inspire a 5-1 scoreline in the first game, while a brace from Niall McGinn and goals from Luke McCullough and Terry Devlin - all coming in the second half - earned a 4-0 win just 11 days later.
Warren Feeney: “The boys and I were very disappointed after last week’s loss to Coleraine. It wasn’t a great performance from us but I felt we were comfortable enough with our lead until a couple of rash and undisciplined decisions at a dangerous time cost us very badly.
On the injury front, I won’t sugar coat where we are. We’ve had a lot of good players, big players for us, sitting in the stand at all our games so far this season and we’ll have some out on Saturday too. Also we’ve been playing some very good players out of position because of injuries to others. Each week We’ve been faced with decisions on players very close to kick off and there are some decisions we’ll have to take this weekend too. But we should be able to put out a team strong enough to get a result.
Carrick will be another tough game. Stuarty bought very well this summer, having brought in some players with a lot of good experience. But we’re well up for it and determined to bounce back.”
Remaining tickets for this game can be purchased HERE on the Carrick Rangers website.
