Linfield enter the lion’s den in East Belfast tonight aiming to torpedo Glentoran’s hopes of title success in the Sports Direct Premiership this season.
The league leaders play the Glens at The Oval (7.45pm) boasting a nine-point lead over their arch-rivals, with a game in hand.
Victory for the Blues tonight would leave seventh-placed Glentoran flailing in their wake in a season of inconsistency all round.
The Glens beat Linfield 3-1 at Windsor Park on October 4 with a fine second half display and goals from Jay Donnelly, Frankie Hvid and Cammy Palmer.
But since then their form has been up and down, evidenced by beating Glenavon and Ballymena United before losing 2-0 to Portadown last Saturday.
Glentoran defender James Singleton feels the players let their manager Declan Devine down against Portadown but insists tonight’s game is the perfect opportunity to get back to winning ways.
“No doubt. There’s no better way to do it”, said the 29-year-old from Lisburn.
“I think it’s important that we as players know that we owe the manager, the coaching staff and the supporters a performance after last week.
“It was a really disappointing performance.
“I don’t think as players we did enough at all on the pitch to get anything from the game and I feel as if we let the manager down.
“It’s vitally important that we put in a good performance on Friday night and we know that if we are all on it, we are a match for anyone in the league, we are good enough to beat anyone and Linfield are no different.”
David Healy’s team are in good form having won their last three games, but they had won three games on the bounce before losing to Glentoran earlier this season.
After taking an early 1-0 lead through Joel Cooper, Linfield submitted meekly to the Glens after the break and Singleton feels nerves came into play for the home side.
“We played Linfield a couple of months ago and got a really good result with a really good second half performance,” he added.
“I think we showed Linfield a wee bit too much respect in the first half and Declan told us at half time, ‘go for it, we’re 1-0 down with nothing to lose’.
“We pressed them and we tried to make them make mistakes, and I think it worked well.
“You could tell Linfield were getting nervous and once we got the equaliser the support started to get on their backs.
“You have to use that to your advantage sometimes and we were able to go on and score another couple late on.
“We need more of the same if we’re going to get a result tonight.
“They’ve obviously got a good bit of form themselves but when you have a rivalry like Glentoran v Linfield, form goes out the window and it’s a big game for us tonight to get back on track.”
