Irish Premiership: Ballymena wants to continue making “great progress”

Ballymena United boss Jim Ervin says his side must give Carrick Rangers “the respect they deserve” following their upturn in form under Stephen Baxter.

Carrick have lost just two of Baxter’s seven games so far and Ervin believes they are a different team to the team beaten 4-1 by the Sky Blues in September.

“We will look at the positives from this game, but the Carrick team, since Stephen came in, will be a completely different challenge,” he said.

“They’ve had some really good results and positive performances, so we need to give them the respect they deserve and we need to make sure we’re there.”

Ballymena have had what Ervin described as an “indifferent” start to the season. They lost their first four games before winning eight in a row to climb the standings.

They then suffered four successive defeats, but beat Cliftonville 1-0 at Solitude in their last league encounter a fortnight ago, with last weekend’s match against Larne canceled due to a waterlogged pitch. water.

And Ervin is happy with the progress his team has made and is determined to continue the positive momentum generated by the victory against the Reds.

“We did everything we could to make the game happen last week, but unfortunately due to the weather we couldn’t do it,” added Ervin.

“It was disappointing because when you win football games you just want the next one to happen, but we had a good week of practice.

“We’re one point away from our points total from last year, so we’ve made great progress, but we’re not getting carried away.”