Half Over!

Around about 15-45 on Saturday afternoon we will have reached the halfway stage of this years league, well the halfway stage before the split, if that makes sense. We'll have played exactly 16.5 league games and amassed 24 points (hopefully more by 16-50), in the process and if we can double that tally in the next 16.5 games, I've no doubt we'll be in the top six, but it ain't going to be easy. The teams below us, Coleraine scum, Glenavon, Newry and our dear friends from Dungannon, all appear to be over their collective 'bad spells' and one things for certain, they will pull out all the stops against us.

Cliftonville, whom we play this Saturday have lost their last 3 league games and their manager Eddie Patterson will no doubt have them all fired up to try and arrest their mini-slump. If we can play to our strengths and avoid an over-reaction from the referee, (Davey Malcolm),I believe we can prevail against the North Belfast Reds. Having said that the referee, aforementioned who is assigned for this game has already had two 'stinkers' in games he officiated in when we were involved, that is the down side. On the up side, we won both those games, one of them with ten men, but hopefully this time we'll manage to keep all eleven players on the pitch.

It's time for our boys to get back to delivering the goods, we were not impressive in our last two games, but on the plus side, we didn't lose. We should've had a win on Tuesday night, even with ten men and can probably count ourselves unlucky to only take a point from the Linfield match, although I do think a draw was a fair result, as for the Glenavon game, we definitely got out of 'jail free' in that one. The blossoming partnership between Gibbo and Cutch could be the key to our success or decline in the coming winter months, which will in turn define our season.

With the 'exciting' Rory Carson unlikely to make a comeback before the end of January, our manager may be tempted to bring someone in when the transfer window opens, as we are desperately short of midfield cover. The experiment of bringing in the Carninney boys has greatly misfired and Mo especially has failed to make a serious impact. In our game at Portadown he was impressive, but since then he has regressed. The time has come to stand up and be counted, 7 points in our next 3 games are vital, otherwise we will be back in the bottom six and that is not a nice place to be, only believe!