Carrick v. Windsor Park, Belfast Saturday, 13 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, 16 March, 2021 Kick-off: 7.45 p.m. Official Matchday Programme: £3 l Volume 50, No.10 Dungannon 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 Carrick Rangers and Tuesday's home game against Dungannon Swifts. Members, senior n Linfield will aim to complete a sequence of members and life members will have free four consecutive home league games in pole access to the live streams. The cost for non- position in the Danske Bank Premiership members remains £7.50 per game. table, but with five other leading clubs in hot Commentary on the games will be provided by pursuit. The coming months are going to Jonny Martin, with expert analysis by Michael produce a major battle to secure the Gault and Philip Mitchell. Premiership title and European qualifying n Today's game against Carrick Rangers was places and Linfield must aim to hold off the originally scheduled for April 17 but has been challenge of the contenders to retain the top brought forward to today's date because this position in the league table. Consistency and date cannot be used for Irish Cup fixtures, due momentum will be the key over the busy to the current government restrictions schedule of the coming months. n affecting clubs designated as non-elite. Results in the past week have been very Linfield have been drawn at home to Annagh pleasing, with a hard fought 2-0 home win United in the Irish Cup opening fixture. against Cliftonville followed up with a n The weekend marks the 135th anniversary of comfortable 5-0 home win against the formation of Linfield Football Club in the Warrenpoint in midweek. Linfield must aim to Linfield mill in the Sandy Row area of Belfast maximise home advantage, by building on in March 1886. This club, while proud of our these positive results, ahead of an upcoming history, is firmly focused on the future and on run of four consecutive away games against Crusaders, Ballymena, Portadown and Monday, will outline details of our strategic Dungannon. plan to take the club forward over the next five n years. A warm welcome to Windsor Park to the n players, management, directors and staff of Today's issue of the match day programme is Carrick Rangers and Dungannon Swifts again being featured in full on Linfieldfc.com, Football Clubs. In the previous games against thanks to the cooperation of our long-time Carrick, Linfield won 5-1 at Windsor Park but programme printers at Edenderry Print. Only the East Antrim team earned a point in the a limited number of copies have been printed recent 1-1 draw at Taylor's Avenue. Linfield and these have been reserved by regular won a County Antrim Shield tie 2-0 in collectors. The absence of spectators at Carrickfergus. In the previous home game games and the unavailability of our against Dungannon, Linfield emerged Superstore, due to the current NI Executive victorious by a 4-0 margin. Carrick and Covid restrictions, have caused major Dungannon enter these fixtures in the bottom difficulties for programme production and two in the league table, but with their sales. Premiership places already assured for next n Exactly a year ago this weekend, this club’s season. With both clubs free from relegation home league game against Larne was worries, their challenge cannot be postponed and the season was unavoidably underestimated. curtailed, due to the unprecedented n Linfield's game at Seaview, originally circumstances of the corona virus pandemic. scheduled for Saturday March 20 has been It’s been a long and difficult year and hopefully, brought forward to Friday March 19 and will be it won’t be too long until a form of normality broadcast live on BBC2. Linfield's game away can return, including the return of greatly to Portadown on Saturday March 27 will have missed spectators to games. a delayed kick-off time of 5.30pm and the n In accordance with the club rules, nominations game will be streamed live by BBC online. from members for positions on the club’s n Linfield tv in partnership with 247.tv will live board of directors, or business motions must stream today's home league game against be submitted by the end of this month. Look at Linfield l 03 visitors team line-ups Carrick Dungannon Rangers Swifts Sam Johnston 01 Geoff McKinty 01 Conner Byrne 13 Aaron Hogg 18 Stuart Addis 18 Connor Friel 28 Roy Carroll 33 Kurtis Forsythe 02 Caolin Coyle 02 Alan Teggart 03 Reece Neale 03 Douglas Wilson 04 Mark Surgenor 04 Dylan King 05 Chris Rodgers 05 Callum Byers 06 Caolan Loughran 06 Caolan McAleer 07 Daniel Hughes 09 Lee Chapman 07 Oisin Smyth 10 Jonny Frazer 08 Rhyss Campbell 11 Daniel Kelly 10 Lorcan Forde 12 Alexander Gawne 11 Mark Patton 14 James Ferrin 15 Ben Gallagher 15 Michael Carvill 16 Michael Smith 16 Cahal McGinty 17 Steven Gordon 17 Ryan Mayse 19 Liam McKenna 19 Shane McGinty 21 Kyle Cherry 20 Fra Brennan 22 Dylan O’Kane 23 Reece Glendinning 23 Terry Devlin 24 Jordan Gibson 24 James Convie 25 Jack Millar 26 Adam Glenny 26 Lloyd Anderson 42 Ethan McGee 27 Shea Conway 28 Jordan Jenkins 43 James Teelan 29 Corey McMullan 44 Odhran Smyth 30 Gérard Storey 48 Harry Evans 31 Chris Ramsey 55 Matty Smyth 32 Nathaniel Ferris 34 Cathair Friel 99 Rory Patterson 35 Look at Linfield l 04 by Linfield manager David Healy Over the course of this weekend, we will face two more formidable hurdles against teams that will come here with no fear and with nothing to lose. Both sides may be in the bottom two at present but even without the fear of the dreaded relegation, they will be battling to gather points, to move away from their current basement positions in the league table. Carrick showed in their recent 1-1 draw against us at the Loughshore hotel arena and in their subsequent 3-1 win at Seaview, that they are more than capable of securing impressive results against the leading sides in the league. Dungannon have also recorded several impressive results and with Roy Carroll in goal and a new manager in Dean Shiels in charge, they will be determined to make a significant impression on their return to a stadium they know well. I was delighted with our recent wins (2-0) against Cliftonville and (5-0) against Warrenpoint. The clean sheets were most welcome and I've also been very pleased with the positive contributions of our new signings, Cameron Palmer and Michael Newberry. Both lads have settled in well in their new surroundings and I'm sure they will make a significant contribution during the course of their time with us. We are in the middle of a tough schedule of Saturday / Tuesday fixtures and the players have responded well to the demands placed on them. Several players missed the midweek game due to injury - Christy Manzinga, Stephen Fallon, Mark Haughey, Mark Stafford and Ross Larkin. They will be joined on the doubtful list for this weekend's games by two others who limped off injured in the midweek game against Warrenpoint. Kyle McClean had just returned to action after a one game suspension, when he picked up an injury early in the Warrenpoint game and later in the game, Conor Pepper had to be withdrawn, due to a knock he sustained. As a result, it's been a busy time for our medical team of Patrick Noble (doctor), Terry Hayes (sports therapist) and Paul Butler (physio) and hopefully, they will have got some of our injured players back into the squad for these important games this weekend. It's not just players who we've been missing, as we've really been missing our loyal supporters, home and away at all of our recent games. We really hope it won't be too long until we can play in front of our supporters again, as we know they can really make a huge difference, especially in tight games. Congratulations to everyone at one of my former clubs Rangers on their 55th league title success and we will be working hard over the coming weeks to try and equal that tremendous achievement. Look at Linfield l 05 Shayne Lavery Age: 22 ard Position: Forw who’s 14 r: Squad numbe Glenavon, revious clubs: P oan at Falkirk at who erton and on l Ev 59 (11 as sub) Appearances: ‘The Park’ Goals: 31 Linfield striker Shayne Lavery is a man in form. On Saturday he banged in two goals in a 2-0 win over Cliftonville, the week before that he did the same in a 2-1 win over Larne and during the week against Warrenpoint Town he scored one, assisted two and was named ‘Man of the Match’. Speaking to ‘Look at Linfield’, Shayne told us he’s thriving with regular starts and wants to keep up his good form. “The two goals against Cliftonville took a while coming but we kept getting into the right areas and putting balls into the box and we believed it would pay off and the midfield and defence were excellent to see the win out.