CRUSADERS boss Stephen Baxter insists it is much too early in the season to be talking about ‘six-pointers’, despite the fact his side will go six points behind Linfield if they lose tonight’s Danske Bank Premiership encounter.
The Blues, who pipped Crusaders to last season’s title, have picked up where they left off, winning all five of their opening league games without conceding a goal in the process.
Crusaders, however, have hardly had a bad start to the season themselves, winning all of their games apart from a home defeat to current table toppers Coleraine. Last Saturday, they went to Ballinamallard and put five past the Fermanagh men, the second time in recent weeks they have hit that number on the road.
Baxter was obviously pleased with last Saturday’s performance, but even more so since it continued their recovery from that blip against Coleraine.
“To come away fairly comfortable winners always pleases you, particularly when you travel such a long distance,” he said.
“I was pleased with the whole performance, I thought the way we went about our business was good. The first week of the season, we’d won at Ballymena, we’d won at home to Warrenpoint, we played well in both games and I thought our standards went down so badly against Coleraine.
“I think the response from us has been excellent, we’ve had four wins from that and you’re seeing the improvement and you’re seeing the desire in the team. I think that was just what maybe disappointed me a little bit was that we dropped off our normal standard.
“I had to gee them back up again, but the response has been superb,” Baxter added of his charges.
Still, lose tonight at Seaview to the Blues and the Crues will be looking at that six-point gap between themselves and the top two.
“You definitely want to be getting something out of the game, you don’t want to be falling six points behind, certainly,” Baxter conceded, before adding, “but at this stage of the season with only five or six games played, it’s something you’re not going to look at and go ‘right, that’s our season all over because we’re six points behind’.
“It is vitally important to try to get something out of the big games and hang in there and pick up as many points as you can and, really, the time to talk about all these things is Christmas when you get into the second half of the season. We’re really only getting to grips with it all. It’s a big game, certainly, we’d like to get something out of it, but it’s not going to be a crunch, crunch scenario at this moment in time.”
Linfield won their derby with fierce rivals Glentoran by the narrowest of margins last weekend and, while it may not have been the ‘Big Two’ game of old, the manner in which they withstood Glentoran pressure was impressive.
“It’s hard to tell,” said Baxter when asked to assess David Healy’s men so far this term.
“They haven’t conceded a goal, which tells me their back four and ’keeper are excellent, which we knew. They’re maybe not scoring as many as they were last year.
“That being said, it’ll be normal from Linfield, it’ll be up and at you. They’ve good players in their team, but likewise I think a lot of our boys are smarting and are keen to really get at it and try to get something out of the game.
“We’d a good winning streak against them, then last year I think we’d two draws and five defeats, so we really need to switch that sooner rather than later and no better time to meet them than now.”
