Tuesday 8 October 2019, Kick Off 7.45pm
On Tuesday night we travel to the Showgrounds for our second Tuesday night meeting with Coleraine this season, This time in the third round of the Bet McLean League Cup.
In our one meeting so far this season, at the Oval in August, we came back from 2-0 down to draw the game through late goals from Hrvoje Plum and Paul O’Neill.
The two teams met at the Oval at the same stage of this tournament. We won that one on penalties, following a 3-3 draw with our goals coming from John Herron and Curtis Allen (2).
Coleraine are on a very good run of form at the moment, and their manager, Oran Kearney, said of this one: ““We welcome Glentoran on Tuesday night which will be incredibly tough. We had a ding-dong with them up there at the start of the season. They’ve been full of spirit, they’re definitely an improved side and have made strides this season. The League Cup is a competition that hasn’t been kind to us throughout the years, so it is one we would like to progress further in. Home advantage is the key thing for us and it’s important we go out and back up today with another big performance”.
Mick McDermott: “Friday night’s result was disappointing, especially losing to a late goal. In the first half Cliftonville had a couple of chances but we had five or six good chances and we should have scored at least a couple of them – we had good efforts from Cricky and Hrvoje and chances for Darren Murray and Paul O’Neill that should have done better. The Reds had more possession, but we played them well on the break. In the second half Cliftonville got into more of a rhythm but I didn’t feel we looked in any trouble and the game could have gone either way, despite us going a man down with 23 minutes left. Even then I thought we adapted well, quickly after we weren’t able to make the tactical changes we wanted. It was disappointing to conceded late in the game, but we created plenty of good chances following the goal. I was disappointed that we hadn’t created that many in the previous half hour, but these are sort of hurdles we’ll be faced with during this rebuild of the club and as I’ve told the players after Friday, we either win or we learn from it.
For tomorrow night we’ll be without a few players. John Herron and Darren Murray each have a one game suspension and Curtis is still recovering from his early season injury. Paul O’Neill is away with the Northern Ireland U21 team following his deserved call up, while Robbie McDaid is still absent due to his recovery from concussion. So, we’re light up front but That will provide a chance for some of our other strong attacking options, such as Antonio Duric, Tom Byrne, Salou Jallow or Navid Nasseri, who’s been very sharp and impressive in training. Cup games are important to us, but I’d expect some of our younger players to take their chance when provided. Cricky came in and did very well against Cliftonville and the Likes of Mal Smith or James McCarthy can do the same. They haven’t let us down in any matches they’ve started so far.”
