Monday 28th January 2019. Kick off 7.45pm.
Tomorrow evening we cross the city for the second time in a month to face our old rivals Linfield at Windsor Park in the third “Big Two” Danske Bank Premiership match of the season.
We have had no success against the Blues so far this season and will be looking to avenge our heavy 4-0 defeat on Boxing Day at the same venue. We go in with greater confidence than last time with two successive league victories under our belts. Two of the players who started on Boxing Day – James Ferrin and Dylan Davidson – have subsequently left the club with Darren Murray, Lukasz Gwiazda and now Gavin Peers coming in.
We go into the game with two first team squad members – Lukasz Gwiazda and Paul O’Neill suspended. Both have five bookings so far this season – three of Lukasz’ with the Welders and four of Paul’s with our Under 20s – and are out for just one game.
Gary Smyth said on Sunday afternoon: “I was very pleased with our performance against Newry last week. The lads couldn’t believe they came in a goal down at half time because we’d played really well and controlled the game right from kick off but they scored with their only shot on target – it came out of nowhere. But I told them it was a time for cool heads and that it was important not to panic. If they kept their focus and kept working as hard as they had been I was confident the match was ours to win.
Robbie McDaid tormented Newry all day – he was on fire, we’ve given him a licence to roam, rather than sticking him up front. He caused them trouble on the right, on the left and through the middle – I was thrilled with his performance, he appears to be revelling in that little role. “Robbie’s the quickest player in our team, his pace will scare people, he is good in the air, he’s direct, he can play on the left or the right. I also want to mention Lukasz Gwiazda’s performance. As well as the perfect dink he passed through to Robbie to set up the winner, his stats show that he ran 12.5km during the match with Conor Pepper second with 11.7km. That’s a phenomenal workrate at this level as typically the top players in England cover around 12-13km in a game. It’s the sort of workrate that will keep us on top in matches and is exactly what we need if we’re to climb the table as we all want.
Tomorrow night at Windsor will be a big challenge as its clear that at the minute the Blues are the best and most in form team in the league. David Healy is like me in that he’s managing the club he’s always supported but the match will mean as much to the likes of Leeper and I as it will to David. We also know we let ourselves down on Boxing Day apart from the first fifteen minutes of the second half. But we know we can compete with them. In the first league match we held our own and the Blues put away the one real chance they had while we didn’t. That was the difference between us. In the Shield game we were the better team in the 90 minutes but we tired (not surprisingly as it was 3 days after the Glenavon match where we were down to nine men for so long) and they beat us because they were the better team in extra time. So we’ll show Linfield respect but we’ve had our confidence boosted by two good, hard worked wins so the atmosphere in the dressing room is high. We’re up for this match and the team and management have worked hard to iron out the mistakes we’ve made too often this season. So we’ll give our all, we’ll make it as hard as possible for the Blues tomorrow and try to ensure we come out of it with something worthwhile.
I’m disappointed we won’t have Lukasz or Paul tomorrow night as they have both been doing well. But John Herron and Moko are both available while Gavin Peers’ clearance has come through so he’s also able to come into contention. We’ve no injury doubts.”
Ticket Information: Tickets will be on sale to Glentoran supporters at the National Stadium on the approach to the North Stand. They also remain available through most of our usual outlets and online at https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/search?q=linfield
