We face Coleraine tomorrow night for the first time this season.
While excitement is building off the pitch at the imminent prospect of new investment, results on the pitch so far have been decidedly mixed for Coleraine. Maximum points were secured from their opening 2 fixtures, but last Saturday’s 3-1 home win over Newry was a first in 5 league games and they have also exited the Scottish Challenge Cup after losing to Hamilton Academical at the Showgrounds in that time.
Glentoran won both league encounters at the Oval last season; Conor McMenamin scoring on the hour to secure a 1-0 victory last September and In the post-split fixture in April, Terry Devlin opened the scoring with a 2nd minute header before a Niall McGinn brace wrapped up the points by half time as we ran out comfortable 3-0 winners.
Goalkeeper Gareth Deane missed the Hamilton and Newry games, so Martin Gallagher could be in line to deputise again, while former Glentoran defender Darren Cole is likely to start and striker Andrew Mitchell will hope to displace summer signing David McDaid to also earn a start against his former club.
Warren Feeney: “Although frustrating, because we should have capitalised on the several chances we had, including hitting the bar twice, the point we got was a fair reflection of last week’s game v Dungannon and demonstrates a 7 consecutive unbeaten record for us.
A positive I did take from it is that we kept our fifth clean sheet in eight league games. When you consider how we’ve had to reshuffle our defence week after week because of injuries the boys who’ve played plus Aaron McCarey in goal deserve a lot of credit for that.
We’ve had to shift other people around too, and we have an injury list that could probably make up another team. Obviously that’s part and parcel of football and not an excuse for a poor performance, but it puts a lot of players on other lads who’ve had to come in when maybe they weren’t quite ready, and Sean Murray who did really well in his twenty minutes but who I’d like to have brought along a bit more slowly after such a long time out.
For tomorrow’s visit by Coleraine, I have a lot of respect for Oran and what he’s achieved there over a long number of years. They’re a good team, have good players and it’s going to be a test. But I’m very pleased about how things are going so it’s a test we have to be confident about overcoming.
Finally I’m very pleased to welcome Mark Ferguson to the club as a First Team Coach. Mark has been with Glenavon for the past few seasons so he’s very experienced, knows the league very well and brings a lot of skills and ideas to the club that will be very valuable to us. He’s an East Belfast boy was a big part of various successes at Glenavon and he’ll add a lot of strength to our coaching staff. “
Remaining tickets for this game can be purchased HERE.
To reiterate the club’s statement earlier this week, we strongly request that supporters respect the rights of the local residents by parking well away from housefronts in the immediate locality. There is plenty of available parking at the Holywood Arches Heath Centre.
Tomorrow’s match sponsor is Premier Group Facilities Management Ltd
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- Address: 32A Greenville St, Belfast BT5 5AG
