Jim Ervin challenges players to 'stake their claim' with Ballymena United missing key duo for Coleraine showdown
While acknowledging the absence of key duo Josh Carson and Ben Kennedy is a blow for his side ahead of their Boxing Day showdown with Coleraine, Ballymena United boss Jim Ervin has challenged those stepping in to seize an opportunity.
Carson has been one of the Premiership’s top players this season after arriving from the Bannsiders during the summer – one of five to make that move – while only Joe Gormley (15) and Matthew Shevlin (13) have scored more league goals than Kennedy’s 12.
The former Stevenage star added to his tally for the first time in more than two months by netting in Saturday’s dramatic 3-2 triumph over Loughgall, but was sent off less than 30 minutes after team-mate Carson at Lakeview Park, meaning the pair will now miss one of Ballymena’s biggest fixtures of the campaign.
Arguably the Sky Blues’ two most influential players – only Linfield’s Joel Cooper has more assists than Carson (six) this season while Dungannon Swifts star Gael Bigirimana is the sole midfielder that can boast more interceptions – Ervin prefers to focus on the opportunity it provides others rather than those absent.
"I think there’s a lot of pressure put on Ben because of the goals he has scored earlier in the season and everybody looks to him to get the goal, but we’ve said before that we can’t rely just on Ben and everybody has to play their part,” he said on Kennedy getting back amongst the goals. "We spoke to our wide players (before the Loughgall game) about taking their chances because they haven’t been doing it either so I was pleased that all of the front three scored.
"We miss Ben now on Boxing Day but it’s part and parcel of football and we’ll deal with it. Opportunities arise for other players and it’s up to them to step up and take their chance.
"It’s a squad game and we’ve said that for a long time. It opens up opportunity for players now to stake their claim.”
It has been an all-or-nothing season for Ballymena, winning 10 and losing 10 of their opening 20 Premiership matches, briefly going top of the league after an eight-game winning run while they’ve also had winless spells of four on two occasions.
Saturday’s success means they’ve now collected more points (30) this term than in the entirety of last season when Ervin’s men narrowly avoided relegation by beating Institute in a play-off.
"It is (progress),” added Ervin. “We understood the circumstances we were in last season.
"It’s pleasing that before Christmas we’ve overtaken that points tally – many people would say that wouldn’t take too much because it was so low last year!
"It’s a sign of progression but it’s still not enough. We’ve set ourselves targets in-house and we want to meet those targets.
"We’re now three points closer to that target and we have to keep chipping away and getting as many points as we can as quickly and early as possible.”