Ballymena United v Glentoran Saturday 18 March 2017, kick-off 3pm.
This week we travel to Warden Street Showgrounds for our third meeting of the season with Ballymena United.
Both previous matches this season with United were deeply frustrating for Glens supporters as on both occasions we squandered what looked like solid half time leads. At the Showgrounds in September (Roy Coyle’s last game as caretaker manager) we led at half time through a Curtis Allen goal after one of the season’s stronger performances. We should have been out of sight but a complete capitulation in the second half led to a 4-1 defeat. At the Oval in December the second half collapse was even worse as a 2 nil half time lead through an own goal and one from Stephen McAlorum was turned into a 2-3 deficit through two Ballymena goals in the last five minutes of the match.
Manager Gary Haveron said: “I totally understand the frustration of supporters at our recent results. Last Saturday at Coleraine was a frustrating afternoon. We had a positive start and if Moko's header had gone in it would have changed the tone of the match. Same if Steven Gordon had taken his chance against the Blues to put us ahead. But that's the fine lines in football and the bottom line is that we haven’t been taking the chances we’ve had at important times and that’s consistently hammered us. That’s down to us. That’s something I want to make sure we are on the right side of next season and am working really hard to build a squad that puts us at the right end of the table and makes us a lot more competitive throughout the season. I know we’re in a completely unacceptable place and I’m working all the hours I can to strengthen and allow us to make the level of changes we need for next season.
Tomorrow we are expecting a really tough game at Ballymena against a team that had a great close season when they made massive changes to their squad and strengthened at every opportunity. So results and momentum is currently with them. But we can't fear anyone so we’ll take the challenge head on and try and finish this very disappointing season off as strongly as we possibly can.”