Preview: Ards v Glenavon (Tue)

Glenavon travels to the Bangor Fuels Arena on Tuesday night for a re-arranged Danske Bank Premiership fixture with Ards (kick-off 7:45pm) knowing that a win would take them to the top of the table above Linfield, at least until the weekend games.

“We’re not thinking about that, we just want to win games of football,” Gary Hamilton explained. “As I’ve said before, Linfield and Crusaders are the teams that should be in the top two positions – they’ve got the biggest budgets and the biggest squads and based on previous years they’ve got the best players because they’ve each won the league.”

Ards has kept clean sheets in the last four games in all competitions, including 0-0 draws away to Linfield and at home to Coleraine and Dungannon Swifts so Gary Hamilton knows that, despite Saturday’s outstanding victory over Champions Crusaders, his players will have a tough task to break down a well organized Ards side.

“It’s going to be a difficult game on Tuesday night. Ards have been doing really well this year and they’ve drawn with Linfield and Coleraine, two top, top sides. Colin has them going well at the minute. We’ll go down there and we can take confidence from our performance against Crusaders but we can’t rest on our laurels. We have to have the right attitude and the right commitment and the same sort of desire that we showed on Saturday and that we’ve shown in most of the games this season. You can’t just think that, because you beat Crusaders it’s just a matter of turning up when you’re playing a team lower than you – you have to have the right mentality and if they go with that and play they way they’ve played, there’s a chance of getting three points.”

Andrew Mitchell scored twice last time out against Ards. Photo by Maynard Collins

Stats A Fact

Glenavon’s starting line-up against Crusaders on Saturday had 8 players aged 24 or under.
The average age of the starting eleven was 24 years and 150 days.
Glenavon had not beaten Crusaders in the league at MVP since September 2012.
In nine league games in charge against Ards, Gary Hamilton has won 8 times and lost just once.

Quiz Question

Who was Glenavon’s youngest player in the starting line-up on Saturday? (Scroll down to the bottom for the answer)

Form Guide

Last 5 league games

Ards: L W D D D F5 A2

Glenavon: W W D W W F14 A5

Ards last defeat was at the Bangor Fuels Arena to Ballymena United on August 18th when David Jeffrey’s side came from behind to win 2-1. Colin Nixon’s team bounced back in the next game with a 4-0 thumping of Premiership new boys Newry City at their adopted home in Bangor.

Glenavon’s only league defeat of the season so far was on the opening day when Linfield edged it 1-0 at Mourneview Park.

On our last visit to the Bangor Fuels Arena, in February 2018, Glenavon defeated Ards 6-1 in a game that was originally abandoned after 51 minutes due to Storm Eleanor. Andrew Mitchell and Stephen Murray both grabbed a double in that match.