Linfield: David Healy wants blend of fire and ice by Blues in Glentoran test

A blank day in the weekend draw with Glenavon has left Linfield sitting second in the Danske Bank Premiership, trailing league leaders Ballymena United by four points.

With every point precious, victory in the ‘Big Two’ meeting marks the priority for Healy but the Linfield boss admits a desire to also make amends for last year’s 2-1 defeat in the same fixture.

“Last year left a bitter taste as my first defeat as manager on Boxing Day,” said Healy. “The Glentoran fans were celebrating and rocking our bus when leaving, despite so many points behind us, which is fine and what it means to win a derby.

“I cannot wait, I love the occasion and hopefully we go back this Boxing Day to what has been our strong past track record.

“You do not need team-talks and everyone should understand what a Boxing Day derby means.

“There’ll be a big crowd so it’s about fire in your belly and ice in your veins.

“I’ll imagine it will be blood and thunder but it’s also about the coolest head so you can play how we want.”

Linfield enter the festive showpiece frustrated at a scoreless draw against Glenavon but with Healy quick to highlight the growth of his squad’s mental strength towards securing that point.

“I think it was a case on Saturday of two well-drilled teams working hard that maybe cancelled each other out,” said Healy last weekend. “A similar time last year we lost and this team would have caved in back then under today’s situation but there’s an improved mental strength.

“We over-complicated things at times against Glenavon but a point shared was probably fair.

“It will not help or hinder what games have been played or not leading up to Boxing Day.”

Healy, with one eye on the New Year transfer window, turned the spotlight on internal options over outside opportunities.

“The January transfer window will not be a case of signing players not able to improve our squad,” he said. “We’ve three really good players in Mark Haughey, Ryan McGivern and Lorcan Forde who’ve basically not kicked a ball for us this season, so they will be like three new players.”

Glentoran make the short journey to Windsor Park short of both minutes and numbers for the high-stakes, high-profile test.

Recent postponements have restricted competition playing time for Ronnie McFall’s squad in recent weeks and the Glens tackle Linfield with Ross Redman, Calum Birney, Joe Crowe and John McGuigan each suspended.

“Obviously I’d rather be taking on Linfield with a full squad to pick from but, as well as Nathan Kerr in his regular place, I have very good, experienced players who will allow me to reshuffle the back four in a way that lets us go there confident,” said the Glens boss on the official club website. “We were in for a very intense session on Saturday and everyone will be totally ready and up for this one.

“Boxing Day “Big Two” matches have always been massive occasions and a good result can set up the second half of the season.

“I thought we definitely deserved more than we got out of the first two matches with the Blues this season but I’m fed up saying that as it’s about time we stopped making unforced errors against the better teams and actually started getting wins in these games.”