Reasons To Be Cheerful?
Mon, Mar 01 2010
As our players fly to Tirana this morning, Nigel Worthington will be delighted to see numerous members of his traveling squad on the score sheet this weekend.
However, not unexpectedly, various players have had to pull out through injury with weekend scorer Chris Brunt sidelined with a calf strain and Ipswich's Gareth McAuley suffering from a groin injury. Damien Johnson has had his request to be rested by Plymouth accepted but Celtic's Niall McGinn will travel having recovered from a thigh strain. With Warren Feeney's wife due to give birth anytime now Worthington sees his squad cut down to 18.
It was great to see Martin Paterson score another for Burnley despite their defeat to Pompey on Saturday. Having been laid off for most of the season through injury it seems Worthington wanted to give our only active Prem striker more time to find form and has not included him in the squad for Wednesday night. Despite not traveling, Chris Brunt scored two goals as West Brom added to Derby County's woes with a 3-1 win, while Jamie Ward too scored a brace in Sheffield Utd's 4-3 home win over Plymouth Argyle. Ward is a popular player at the Blades and will be sure to feature in the forthcoming Euro campaign.
North of the border Andy Kirk continued his tremendous goal scoring form for Dunfermline with another away to Morton, while here at home Rory Patterson scored his 33rd goal for Coleraine in the Setanta Cup home defeat to League of Ireland champions Bohemians.
The highlight of the weekend has to be Sammy Clingan's free-kick for Coventry in their 2-1 home win against Scunthorpe. Although Grant McCann had levelled for The Iron, Clingan's free-kick was simply sublime helping Chris Coleman's side push for a play-off place. David Healy started for Ipswich on Saturday and despite a goalless draw against Bristol City was unlucky not to score. So all bodes well for Nigel Worthington despite the inevitable squad withdrawls.
Albania will be tough opposition on Wednesday. They have some useful players with Sunderland's Lorik Cana their captain. Northern Ireland had Albania in their 1966 World Cup qualifying group and a scoreless draw at Windsor Park saw Albania get their only point, but it was enough to put Switzerland through to the finals instead of Northern Ireland. We also had them in the 1984 Euro qualifying Group with another 0-0 draw in Tirana and an Ian Stewart home goal to beat them at Windsor. Ian Stewart is of course still remembered for his goal in our home win over 1984 qualifiers West Germany whom we also beat away courtesy of Big Norm.
For the travelling Northern Ireland supporters it should be a good trip, with beer at about 60p a bottle. Light rain is forecast though, with a daytime maximum of 15 and night time lows of 9.
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