Yohann Lacroix

Please forgive us for the title of this post, we had to copy and paste from another site, for we had to be sure that we got the spelling correct. We think its the first time we are to have a French national playing for us, but we could be wrong, but we wish him all the best in his brief Sky Blue career. That we need to call on him at all is down to Stephen 'one cap' Carson of the scum and his brutal attack on our second string keeper, Stuarty Addis. This was the second time this season that a keeper of ours was brutally attacked by an opposing player, normally you only see that sort of tackles once in a blue moon, but already it has happened to us twice in half a season, roll on 2014 is all we can say.

As usual we have no idea about injuries or suspensions, but we hope everybody came through the big Boxing Day victory unscathed as such. We are of the opinion that we'll need to be up for this one, as the corresponding fixture when we played Ards at Dixon Park, we didn't start and got no points, in truth we didn't deserve any. But we've come a long way from then and although Ards play on a unnatural surface, 3 G, we think it is, they're are on an horrendous run of defeats, 7 in a row and if we play as we can, we should make that 8 in a row. But a wounded animal fights for its life and no doubt Ards come into that category and they will be up for a fight.

We have an 'ace in the hole', in our talisman Cush. He drew a blank last Thursday at Coleraine, but he'll want to set the record straight tomorrow and get 2014 off to a scoring start. Captain Jenks, who scored a double at Coleraine to take his tally for the season up to half a dozen, will no doubt be anxious to add to his total, in view of the rumours surrounding United and a certain Pistol Pete. Manager Glenn Ferguson, refused to be drawn when asked about significant signings in the transfer window, his comment was, 'watch and see'. It remains to seen if the addition of a 'new' keeper will have much effect on our defence, it'll maybe take a few games for them to get acquainted, but unfortunately we don't have a few games.

Our understanding of the arrangement with Crues and their manager Stephen Baxter, is that Yohann won't play in the Irish cup, for us and he'll be recalled before the end of January. So he needs to hit the ground running, with two matches in three days, Wed & Sat and a possible match with Dungannon Swifts on Tues Jan 14 and  Linfield on Saturday Jan 18 and Crues will probably require him for the League cup final on Sat  Jan 25. Meanwhile we have to sign a keeper for the Irish cup tie against the Welders On Jan 11, if as expected, Dwayne is ruled out for months instead of weeks. Big Wes, our goalkeeping coach has been registered, but in all fairness we don't expect to use him, except in an emergency. So back to tomorrow game, its all systems go for United and Lacroix, lets shag those Scrabo Tower sheep!