Portadown vs Crusaders Live Stream, Predictions

📊 Form Guide

Portadown

DLWWLW

Portadown fans will want a repeat of their previous result, being a 3-4 Premiership victory over Newry City.

For Portadown, the goals were scored by Stephen Teggart (17'), Paul McElroy (20'), Chris Rodgers (37' Own goal), Josh Archer (92') and Benny Igiehon (94'). John McGovern (45') and Brian Healy (80') scored for Newry City.

At least three goals per match have been seen in 5 of the past 6 meetings where Portadown have taken part. Opposing sides scored 11 of them in these games while Portadown managed to get a total of 11.

Heading into this contest, Portadown have not emerged victorious against Crusaders in their previous 13 league games. That has got to hurt.

Crusaders

WDWDWD 📈

In their last game, Crusaders drew 2-2 in the Premiership match with Cliftonville.

For Crusaders, goals were scored by Jordan Forsythe (26') and Ross Clarke (80'). Ryan Curran (35', 71') was the scorer for Cliftonville.

A run of very capable showings by the Crusaders defensive players has seen their ‘goals against’ tally standing at 4 from their previous 6 outings overall. Over that same period, the number of goals that they have scored themselves is 10. Despite that, we will just have to wait and see whether that pattern shall continue on in this upcoming match.

Analysis of their past results shows that Crusaders:

• have not lost to Portadown when they've played them away from home in the last 7 matches in the league. A solid away record against them.
• are undefeated in their last 2 league matches away from home.
• are without an away win for the past 5 matches in the league.

👥 Head to head

An examination of their past head to head meetings going back to 30/03/2021 reveals that these encounters have been miserable for Portadown. They have not been able to get themselves any wins at all while Crusaders have remained in the ascendancy, running out winners in 100 per cent of those matches.

17 goals were produced between them in these games, with 2 from The Ports and 15 for The Hatchetmen. That’s an average goals per game figure of 2.83.

The previous league fixture between these sides was Premiership match day 12 on 22/10/2022 which ended up with the score at Crusaders 4-0 Portadown.

The match was refereed by Evan Boyce.

📋 Team News: Portadown

The Portadown boss Niall Currie does not have any fitness concerns at all before this match with a fully injury-free group ready to go.

📋 Team News: Crusaders

With a completely healthy group to pick from, the Crusaders boss Stephen Baxter doesn’t have any fitness worries at all before this game.

💡 Prediction

Our thinking is that Portadown should have enough to score against this Crusaders team, but one goal may not be good enough.

We are therefore anticipating a close game with a 1-2 winning margin for Crusaders at the end of this one. Looking forward to this.

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

Victor Martins, 02:29 14/03/2023