Saturday 8th February 2020, Kick Off 3.00pm
On Saturday we aim to further strengthen our position in the upper reaches of the Dansk Bank Premiership, with our third league meeting with Coleraine this season.
We have drawn both league meetings so far 2-2, with each team overturning a two-goal deficit.one and lost one to the Bannsiders this season. In the second match of the 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. That was the least we deserved on the night. In December we put in an outsytanding first half performance to go into the break 2-0 through goals from Robbie McDaid and Paul O’Neill were cancelled out in the second half buy an Aaron Jarvis double.
Coleraine manager Oran Kearney told Steven Crawford of the Coleraine Times he’s expecting another ding-dong battle between the two sides. "It is brilliant, and we mentioned it before our Irish Cup game with Banbridge Town last week that they are the games you want to be involved in," he said. We have eleven games left and eleven cup finals and there is a real big buzz about it. Glentoran are pushing hard at the top of the league and it is up to us to go there and get something from the game”, They are likely to be without influential striker Eoin Bradley due to a hamstring injury, while there are also doubts about midfielders Ben Doherty, Josh Carson and double scorer in our last game, Jarvis.
Mick McDermott: “Following our win at Queen’s last week we’re through to the quarter finals of the Irish Cup. Though it certainly wasn’t an easy win. We didn’t underestimate Queen’s after their earlier win over Linfield, but we didn’t perform as well as we should. The players know that and didn’t need me to tell them. This squad have set themselves a very high standard of performance over the past few months, so they were very well aware how they underperformed at the Dub. I was very pleased with the attitude they showed after the game and I’m confident we won’t see a repetition in either league or cup in the last few weeks of the season.
We will need to be focussed, prepared and at our most professional when we play Coleraine on Saturday. They are a very well organised, talented team and they’ve strengthened well in the January window. Our two league meetings so far have been very exciting, attractive matches with each of us overturning a two-goal lead. I felt in our last game at the Showgrounds we should have been out of sight, having played so well to deservedly go two up by half time.
Last week at Queen’s both Gavin Peers and Keith Cowan were feeling strains so weren’t used, Coalan and Mitch were cup tied and Ruaridhri wasn’t signed in time to play in the game, though he isn’t cup tied. Those five are all available today while at this stage whether or not Deivydas’ international clearance has been processed in time by the two associations. But either way we’ll have a strong starting line-up and equally importantly, a strong bench”.
As with our last home game, we will have two Season Ticket gates, two contactless gates for card payments, one gate for online tickets, one adult cash gate and one concession cash gate. Attendances have been steadily increasing this season, we would encourage non season ticket holders to either use the cash free gates, or to purchase their tickets in advance.
Online tickets can be purchased here
The Board of Directors at Glentoran Football Club would again request that all supporters travelling to the Oval by private car consider the local residents when deciding where and how to park. Local parking is freely available at the Arches Health Centre.
Saturday’s Match sponsor is:
Chris Bradley Personal Training
We are a private gym located on the Station Road Industrial Estate in Magherafelt. We specialise in helping busy people lose weight, gain muscle & pick up their confidence in under 12 weeks. We have a wide range of programs available for anyone beginning their health & fitness journey to those individuals who want to completely transform the way they look, feel & most importantly how they live their lives.
https://chrisbradleypersonaltraining.com/
