Cliftonville v. Windsor Park, Belfast Saturday, 6 March, 2021 Kick-off: 3.00 p.m. Danske Bank Premiership Season 2020-2021 Look at Linfield Danske Bank Premiership Windsor Park, Champions Belfast 2019-20 Tuesday, 9 March, 2021 Kick-off: 7.45 p.m. Official Matchday Programme: £3 l Volume 50, No.9 Warrenpoint v. what’s the ord fromw L U B O T B A L L C F I E L D F O r? E O F L I N dso H E V O I C win T and the game will be streamed live by BBC n online. Linfield commence a sequence of four n consecutive home league games in pole Linfield tv in partnership with 247.tv will live position in the Danske Bank Premiership stream today's home league game against table but with five other leading clubs in hot Cliftonville and upcoming home games in pursuit. The coming months are going to March against Warrenpoint, Dungannon and produce a major battle to secure the Carrick Rangers. Members, senior Premiership title and European qualifying members and life members will have free places and Linfield must aim to hold off the access to the live streams. The cost for non- challenge of the contenders to retain the top members remains £7.50 per game. position in the league table. Consistency and Commentary on the Cliftonville game will be momentum will be the key over the busy provided by Jonny Martin and Michael Gault. schedule of the coming months. n Linfield’s home league game against n Results in the past week have been mixed, Carrick Rangers originally scheduled for with a pleasing 2-1 home win against Larne April 17 has been brought forward to followed up with a hugely disappointing 3-1 Saturday March 13. This is because the March 13 date cannot be used for Irish Cup reverse at the Oval in midweek. A positive fixtures, due to the current government response to the setback at the Oval will be restrictions affecting clubs designated as required and Linfield must avoid further non-elite. Linfield have been drawn at home such slip ups, if the challenges of our main to Annagh United in the Irish Cup opening contenders are to be thwarted. fixture. n A warm welcome to Windsor Park to the n The month of March marks the 135th players, management, directors and staff of anniversary of the formation of Linfield Cliftonville and Warrenpoint Town Football Football Club in the Linfield mill in the Clubs. In the previous games against Sandy Row area of Belfast in March 1886. Cliftonville, Linfield won 2-0 at Windsor Park but the Reds won the most recent game, 4-3 n Matthew Clarke made his 250th appearance at Solitude. In the previous games against for Linfield in the midweek league game Warrenpoint, the South Down team won 2-1 away to Glentoran. at Milltown, with Linfield winning the n Niall Quinn has agreed a contract extension Windsor Park return game by a 6-0 margin. that will secure his future at Windsor Park Cliftonville enter today’s fixture in fifth place until the end of the 2022/23 season. in the league table, while Warrenpoint Town n Today's issue of the match day programme will visit Windsor Park in ninth place, with is again being featured in full on their Premiership place already assured for Linfieldfc.com, thanks to the cooperation of next season. With both clubs having already our long-time programme printers at defeated Linfield this season, their Edenderry Print. Only a limited number of challenge cannot be underestimated. copies have been printed and these have n Linfield's game at Seaview, originally been reserved by regular collectors. The scheduled for Saturday March 20 has been absence of spectators at games and the brought forward to Friday March 19 and will unavailability of our Superstore, due to the be broadcast live on BBC2. Linfield's game current NI Executive Covid restrictions, have away to Portadown on Saturday March 27 caused major difficulties for programme will have a delayed kick-off time of 5.30pm production and sales. Look at Linfield l 03 visitors team line-ups Cliftonville Warrenpoint Aaron McCarey 37 Town Declan Dunne 20 Gabriel Sava 01 Conor McDermott 02 Levi Ives 03 Andy Coleman 21 Garry Breen 04 Colm Deasy 02 Ryan O’Reilly 05 Jamie Harney 06 Steven Ball 03 Chris Curran 07 Gavin Peers 04 Daire O’Connor 08 Ryan Curran 09 Dermot McVeigh 06 Michael McCrudden 10 Kealan Dillon 07 Seanna Foster 12 Alan O’Sullivan 09 Aaron Donnelly 14 Mark McKee 15 Francis McCaffrey 10 Liam Bagnall 16 Luke Gallagher 11 Ronan Doherty 17 Donal Rocks 18 Adam Carroll 12 Joe Gormley 19 Ben Mullen 14 Calvin McCurry 21 Ryan Swan 15 Odhran Casey 22 Ethan Devine 24 Colm Carney 17 Rory Hale 27 Kris Cowan 18 Kris Lowe 30 Daniel Kearns 32 Matthew Knox 19 Paul O’Neill 33 Danny Wallace 23 Eoin Teggart 36 Barry Coffey 40 Mark Carson 24 Look at Linfield l 04 by Linfield manager David Healy Over this weekend we will face huge challenges from Cliftonville and Warrenpoint Town teams that will come here in good form and boosted by their league wins against us earlier this season. This weekend marks the start of four consecutive home league games and we must aim to maximise the home advantage, to secure the victories we need to maintain our position at the top of the table. Over the past few weeks Coleraine, Glentoran, Crusaders and Cliftonville have closed the gap on Larne and ourselves at the top of the table and there is no doubt that we have a genuine title race on our hands involving the current top six teams. At this stage of the season, it’s all about putting a run together to reach the finishing line in first position in the league table and we must start that process today and maintain a higher level of consistency than we’ve managed in recent weeks. After the 'high' of the recent home win against Larne, we suffered the 'low' of the midweek away defeat at the Oval. We started brightly at the Oval but conceded several poor goals and unfortunately, couldn’t find a way back into the game past a stubborn Glentoran rearguard. I know it was a result and performance that brought huge disappointment to our thousands of loyal supporters but now, it’s all about the positive reaction that we will be looking for in each of our upcoming games. There are a huge number of games to negotiate in March, due to the unprecedented circumstances of this season and we will have to make full use of our squad this month. There will be several changes in the starting line up from the team that lined up at the Oval and I want to see real hunger from our players to make the most of the opportunity they get, when they get a shirt in the starting eleven for each game. We will have assessed the players in training on Thursday to see their levels of fitness after our recent busy run of fixtures and one or two will be receiving treatment for knocks picked up in our recent games. Congratulations to Niall Quinn who has extended his contract by a further year which will commit him to this club to the end of the 2022/23 season. He's a real unsung hero at this club, a popular, dependable, versatile and important player who will make a significant contribution to this club over the duration of this richly deserved extended contract, Congratulations also to his close friend, Matthew Clarke who reached a significant landmark of 250 Linfield appearances in the midweek game at the Oval. We will again miss the vocal backing of our loyal supporters in these Windsor Park games but we know you will be cheering us on, courtesy of the Linfield tv live stream broadcasts. Look at Linfield l 05 Mark Stafford Age: 33 al-defender Position: Centr who’s 2 er: Squad numb rd : Ballinamalla Previous clubs at who ited Un 150 (9 as sub) Appearances: ‘The Park’ Goals: 29 Linfield defender Mark Stafford is a fan favourite and everyone connected with the Club would have been very pleased for the Fermanagh man when he reached the milestone of 150 appearances in last week’s home game against Glentoran. Although it wasn’t the result he wanted to go with it, the former Ballinamallard defender was rightly proud. “When I arrived at the Club and did my first week in training I didn’t think I’d last 10 games, never mind 150. The standards are so high and I thought it was maybe a step too far for me as a player but I stuck at it and dug in and it’s nice to be able to get the opportunity to reach the milestone. I feel very privileged to play for Linfield and reach the milestone. There’s been a lot of players who have signed for Linfield that are better than me but for whatever reason, haven’t played as many games. “Linfield becomes a part of your life. For the past six years Linfield has been a big part of my life and you get used to playing games, training, the pressure that comes with it, the expectationsQ a lot of good times and a lot of times where you’re down; that’s all a part of it.