Brilliant Whites, Fading Blues?

[Sniffer]

Neutral's eye view of yesterday's Big Two meeting here

[Graemerz]

Glens played well and deserved the 3 points. Blues were just awful, not for the first time this season either. The League is so very tight though.

Oran Kearney is back but is nowhere near fit. Conor Downey is on his way back. Soon Linfield will be at full strength again and with the Setanta Cup soon to start it's an important time to be at full strength, now they just have to find the form everyone knows they are capable off.

BTW people look out for Billy Joe Burns, hopefully he'll getting an opportunity soon, maybe during the Setanta. This young man is going to huge.

[Steve Bruce]

I would agree with Graemerze.

It seems Linfield are unable or unwilling to get out of 2nd gear. We have been truely aweful this season.

[Sniffer]

Yes, interesting times ahead. As a neutral, I would dearly love to see Climville win the Gibson Cup this year. The Setanta Cup is the fly in the ointment though - Linfield are clearly best equipped to absorb the games with their squad depth- the Reds need a lot of luck injurywise. Then there's the deteriorating quality of the pitches - this could also derail Eddie Patterson's side.

[waide]

Glens played well and deserved the 3 points. Blues were just awful, not for the first time this season either. The League is so very tight though.

Oran Kearney is back but is nowhere near fit. Conor Downey is on his way back. Soon Linfield will be at full strength again and with the Setanta Cup soon to start it's an important time to be at full strength, now they just have to find the form everyone knows they are capable off.

BTW people look out for Billy Joe Burns, hopefully he'll getting an opportunity soon, maybe during the Setanta. This young man is going to huge.

For the first time i am starting to question some of big Davy's tactics and selections,right back slot and fergie playing the full 90 mins,but the obvious one on boxing day was Noel Bailie he was badly exposed on a number of occasions,it really is time to promote some of the promising youngsters.

[Sniffer]

For the first time i am starting to question some of big Davy's tactics and selections,right back slot and fergie playing the full 90 mins,but the obvious one on boxing day was Noel Bailie he was badly exposed on a number of occasions,it really is time to promote some of the promising youngsters.

Trying not to make a snap judgement on Bailie, but it was hard to ignore his performance on Boxing Day - if he had been anyone else, I think he'd have been called ashore.

[Graemerz]

Out of all of the Boxing Day match the thing that I didn't understand the most was the reason not to bring on full-time NI U21 international Thomas Stewart and bring on left mid/defenders Damien Curran and Aiden O'Kane who are both very similar players. A poor team selection is understandable, but when you are a goal down and you had just one shot on goal the entire match you need to change something but again our fearless leader did not deliver. I don't think DJ likes young Stewart and IF this is the case why is he even on the bench?

[Sniffer]

Stewart hasn't been given a fair crack by DJ; he's a striker not an attacking midfielder but has never had a run of games up front.It certainly was a strange call to send Curran on, made no sense to me at the time.