📏 Form Guide

Carrick Rangers

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Carrick Rangers will be looking for an improved result here after the 3-2 Premiership loss in their previous game against Dungannon Swifts.

For Carrick Rangers, the goalscorers were Kyle Cherry (51') and Danny Gibson (62'). Tomas Galvin (13') and Kealan Dillon (18', 22') scored for Dungannon Swifts.

Fixtures featuring Carrick Rangers have often been lively affairs recently with high scoring being a real hallmark. Over their past 6 games alone, a total of 22 goals have gone in for both teams combined (at an average of 3.67 goals per game) with 11 of those belonging to Carrick Rangers.

Their past results show that Carrick Rangers:

• have not been beaten in the league by Ballymena United in their last 2 matches.
• have not won at home in their last 2 matches in the league.

Ballymena United

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Ballymena United head into the meeting following a 2-3 Premiership win over Loughgall in their previous outing.

For Ballymena United, the scorers were Fraser Taylor (3'), Alex Gawne (5') and Steven McCullough (72'). Ryan Waide (56') and Nathaniel Ferris (61') scored for Loughgall.

Indicating their bias toward action-packed encounters, we’ve had goals 20 times in the prior six matches in which Ballymena United have played, yielding a mean average of 3.33 goals for each clash. Opposition teams have managed 15 from this total. Putting that to one side, time will tell if such a trend might continue on here in this game.

👥 Head to head

Checking on their prior head-to-head meetings going back to 07/01/2023 tells us that Carrick Rangers have won 3 of them & Ballymena United 2, with the number of drawn results being 1.

In all, 9 goals were scored between the two sides in this period, with 6 of them for The Gers and 3 netted by Sky Blues. The average number of goals per game works out to 1.5.

The previous league meeting between these sides was Premiership match day 32 on 16/03/2024 which finished with the scoreline of Ballymena United 0-2 Carrick Rangers.

The referee was Tony Clarke.

🗞️ Team News: Carrick Rangers

Looking at personnel, there is just the sole fitness concern for the Carrick Rangers gaffer Stuart King to be concerned with thanks to an almost full-strength squad. Reece Glendinning (Ankle surgery) won’t play.

📋 Team News: Ballymena United

From a largely full-strength group of players, there’s just the lone fitness worry for the Ballymena United boss Jim Ervin to contend with. Colin Coates (Knee surgery) won’t be in action.

💭 Prediction

We feel that Carrick Rangers can create the chances to score more than once when they come up against Ballymena United, who might well find it a difficult task to find the back of the net.

Accordingly, we see a pretty comfortable 2-0 winning margin for Carrick Rangers after 90 minutes.

Our expert partners are tipping under 3.5 goals for this match. Check out their VIP predictions here.

Andre Moura, 13:05 13/04/2024