MANAGER'S VERDICT: Jim Ervin doesn't want to 'get myself into trouble' over two red cards and praises Ballymena United after defending 'for their lives'
Despite red cards for key duo Josh Carson and Ben Kennedy, Ballymena United held on to record a 3-2 Premiership victory over Loughgall at Lakeview Park on Saturday. Here’s what Jim Ervin had to say after the game:
ON THE MATCH
"It was mental. I think we deserved the three points. I’m obviously disappointed to lose the two boys to red cards...whether they were red cards or not can wait to another day because I don’t want to get into it too much and get myself into trouble, I’d rather not do that.
"It’s a well deserved and well needed three points. It’s up to us now to try and push on again. We responded almost immediately to the first goal and that was good because it meant Loughgall didn’t get the control on the game.
"With the conditions we were trying to play it in behind them and force mistakes and we did that to get back on level terms. We scored at a good time before half-time which helped us.
"I thought we deserved our third and if we’d kept 11 players on the pitch might have scored another one because of the pressure we were putting on them.
"Credit to Loughgall for putting pressure on us after we went down to nine, but credit to my boys because I thought they defended for their lives, put bodies on the line, heading everything, last ditch tackles – it was incredible and shows the togetherness we have.”
ON BEN KENNEDY
"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.
"We spoke to our wide players today 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.”
ON JOSH CARSON MISSING TOO
"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.”