Portadown boss Niall Currie: Linfield have a star on their hands with 'special' midfielder

The 19-year-old has spent the season on-loan at Shamrock Park and scored a late equaliser against Newry City last weekend before Portadown went on to win 4-3 in the dying seconds and keep their hopes of survival alive.

Currie has sung Archer’s praises at various points throughout the season but following his suspension for their previous triumph over Dungannon Swifts, he started the next game against Carrick Rangers on the bench.

He was back in from the start on Saturday and the Ports boss was delighted with his impact.

"Josh was very unlucky not to start (in their loss to Carrick Rangers) but we were on the back of a big win against Dungannon and I'm not the type of manager that leaves players out for no reason,” said Currie.

“As much as I wanted to play Josh I don't like going to a player and telling them they were fantastic on Friday night but you're on the bench (against Carrick). I'm a bit old school in trying to treat people fairly and I did that. Maybe it was to my detriment because the kid is special.

"Linfield are a very lucky club to have this kid coming through. Whether he's ready for them week in, week out right now I'm not sure but this experience he's having in the Irish League at this age and playing at this level all season has done nothing but kick him on.

"We're really happy to have him. He's a kid I tried to get to Dundela last year too. He's an old brain playing with a very young body and he's going to be a special player."

Currie was much more pleased with the effort levels from his men at the Newry Showgrounds compared to their previous showing in a limp display at home to Carrick.

They will need to dig even deeper against Europe-chasing Crusaders on Saturday afternoon, who haven’t lost since late-January.

"See for me, it's just about us making sure we're at our best,” he added. “I don't care about the opposition.

"Of course we do set-pieces and make sure players are being picked up and things like that, but ultimately for me we need to make sure we're at our best. That was the big disappointment against Carrick.

"When I looked at our GPS stats after the game I was able to say to the players after the game that they won't be wringing any shirts out with sweat after that and just watching it we were well short of the running capacity that we had in the previous games.

"We did their GPS stats at training and on average they were 2.5 kilometres down from the Glenavon and Dungannon games and we can't joke about those things.

"That means to me we didn't run around enough and that had to be rectified (against Newry). I guarantee their GPS stats were pretty decent."