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Europa League Campaign 2020-2021


Welldaft Mk1
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52 minutes ago, steelboy said:

It just feels like a potential banana skin at the moment. Without the prospect of a big home crowd or an away trip there's not much to get excited about. 

Glentoran certainly has the potential to be awkward. I'm quite happy we have been drawn out first. Under normal circumstances the prospect of a trip to Belfast with 1000 odd 'Well fans would be one to look forward to.  Current times I'm happy enough at being drawn at home.

If they're fast though there should be some useful footage easy to hand on them which should be of help. They were on BBC NI on Friday night in the Irish Cup Final and I think the Semi-Final might well have been on a few days before that too. 

I can't agree though that it doesn't hold any excitement given the potential for what lies ahead if we can overcome either or the two.

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Also worth noting if I read correctly that their tie v HB will be their 1st competitive game this season or whatever season they are in.

Which means that even if they do come through that tie then we will probably be only their 2nd competitive game, whereas we will have played 5 league matches by 27th August. 

Will it make a difference. You would hope so. 

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Glentoran will be coming into their first tie here with a good bit of momentum, but will also be lacking their star guys from last term. 

They won the Irish Cup two Fridays ago, after extra time, and less than 24 hours later, they sold Navid Nasseri, arguably their best fit player, to Linfield. 

Hrvoje Plum was a standout for them from August til January, pinging in free-kicks and worldies all over the shop until he injured himself trying to do a Larne player in at the turn of the year. Hasn't played since. No coincidence that their Irish League title challenge tailed off after that, as Plum had been pulling the strings towards it.

Patrick McClean, brother of James, has put in some shift for them, scored a belter of an overhead kick in the earlier Irish Cup rounds and was a real driving force in the semi and final. Robbie McDaid is also a tricky wee player up front for them, while Elliot Morris is still a top goalie at Irish League level, despite his age. 

Manager Mick McDermott has instilled a good ethos in their dressing room and on the pitch, something they've badly lacked in the 6 years I've been over here and taking an interest in the local football.

Like with almost all Irish League clubs, the Glens are a part time team, so by virtue of that, our fitness should be miles ahead. Both the semi and final went to extra time for them and after about 70 minutes in both games, Glentoran, Cliftonville and Ballymena were all blowing out their arses. If they manage to get past HB, then we should be able to see them off, although if Plum and Nasseri were still options for them, I'd maybe be a bit warier of them.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Spit_It_Out said:

We shall destroy any of those pair of teams come on ladies and gents!Lost 2 first league games,not looked like scoring,don't look fit,can't take a throw in,can't take corners and don't look the best what's not to worry about!

We certainly haven't  looked sharp in front of goals, but we've been fit enough to dominate for long spells in both games.

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6 minutes ago, weeyin said:

We certainly haven't  looked sharp in front of goals, but we've been fit enough to dominate for long spells in both games.

Think dominate is going a tad to far 

Yes we’ve had more of the ball … but if teams know your not going to punish them there quite happy for you to have the ball to pass about and do nothing 

Think this is what both County and United were prepared to to … … let us have the ball because they knew eventually we would give it back to them 

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1 hour ago, GazzyB said:

We'll absolutely scud Glentoran ffs :lol:

Agreed , We will pump either one of them to be honest, Glentoran, 5th place finish in the league last year and ranked 421 out of 423  team in uefa and Torshavn, 3rd best in the Faroe Islands ffs, we have already beaten them 7-1 on aggregate in 1994 and its a fair bet they have not improved since then. 

This is a good starter for us, home tie against probably the lowest ranked teams we could have got, whats not to like

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5 hours ago, wellwell91 said:

Think dominate is going a tad to far 

Yes we’ve had more of the ball … but if teams know your not going to punish them there quite happy for you to have the ball to pass about and do nothing 

Think this is what both County and United were prepared to to … … let us have the ball because they knew eventually we would give it back to them 

We had 15 shots to County's 9 and 18 shots to Utd's 11. So the additional possession led to more attempts.

Every team eventually concedes possession, so I'm not sure that is much of an argument.

Our strikers struggled to score last season, but our midfield bailed us out in that department. I'm hoping one of the new signings will have a 20 goals season this time, but it needs to start soon.

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6 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

Agreed , We will pump either one of them to be honest, Glentoran, 5th place finish in the league last year and ranked 421 out of 423  team in uefa and Torshavn, 3rd best in the Faroe Islands ffs, we have already beaten them 7-1 on aggregate in 1994 and its a fair bet they have not improved since then. 

This is a good starter for us, home tie against probably the lowest ranked teams we could have got, whats not to like

Yeah but in 1994 we also went toe-to-toe with Borussia Dortmund. I sometimes watch that game on youtube and get annoyed at how close we came over there.

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