Red Rory!

United pay a visit to league leaders Glentoran tomorrow night and it'll be a chance for our recent recruits to gauge themselves against the top team in the country at the moment. The Glens have been scoring goals for fun and the United defence will have to be at their best if they are to thwart, Matty Burrows and Daryl Fordyce, who shared five goals as the Glens swept aside 2nd division side Queens Uni in the C.I.S. cup on Saturday. It'll be a good test for United central defender Denver Gage, in the Oval cauldron, where mistakes are much magnified. But young Gage has so far demonstrated that he is hard to faze as he continues to make himself an automatic selection in United's rearguard.

Will United manager Roy Walker, continue with the midfield formation he unveiled last Saturday, which pitted Gazza alongside the 'wonder boy', Rory Carson? In fact it's hard to know if he'll continue with the same 4,4,2 formation or change to the more defensive minded 4,5,1 which worked so well against Portadown. Whatever selection the 'wily' Walker comes up with, they will have to perform with the highest quality if United are to take anything from tomorrow night's game. The wide spaces at the Oval will be in massive contrast to the narrow confines of Crystal Park, Banbridge, but that's what football is all about, adapting to the different conditions and still getting your act together.

The man in the middle, Davey Malcolm, is not famous for giving us much and does have a tendency to lean towards the home side, so we can expect a few biased decisions. With that in mind tackling will have to be crisp and fair especially in the last third of the pitch as free kicks in that area can be costly. Hopefully Davey won't ask any more of our players to continue with head injuries, as he did when we played Glenavon, though a similar result will do very nicely. Sammy Patterson has been 'raving' about the conditions at Crystal Park in his latest edition of 'Away View' and no doubt we'll see a major contrast at the Oval tomorrow night. No matter what conditions are though, we'll still be there, so come on Sky Blues, let's shag those EastEnders!