The undisputed game of the weekend in the Danske Bank Premiership takes place tonight as the top two meet for the first team in the league this season as Larne and Linfield meet at Inver Park.
The home side go into tonight’s game with a slight upper hand as they are currently a point ahead of the Blues so David Healy’s side will need to make the trip back to Belfast with all three points if they are to regain top spot. The two sides have met once already this season in the County Antrim Shield with Larne coming from behind to win 4-1 but they were aided by the fact the Linfield were reduced to ten men for a large portion of the game.
Last week Lynch’s side left it late to beat Glenavon with Johnny McMurray scoring the winner in the 89th minute to keep their unbeaten run going while Linfield returned to winning ways against Cliftonville after suffering a shock defeat against Warrenpoint the previous week.
Elsewhere last week David Jeffrey’s Ballymena side continued their recent resurgence with a 0-0 draw against Portadown being enough to see them move into 4th place and make it four games unbeaten, the Ports followed this result up with a 3-0 win against Dungannon in midweek with goals coming from Stephen Teggart, Adam McCallum and Barney McKeown.
Warrenpoint also kept their positive start to the season going with a win against Carrick, who now occupy bottom spot and trial 11th placed Glentoran by two points who were beaten by Crusaders last week after picking up their first win of the season the week before against Dungannon.
Here is the full Danske Bank Premiership league table as it stands: –
| POS | TEAM | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS |
| 1 | Larne | 9 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 4 | 11 | 23 |
| 2 | Linfield | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 10 | 12 | 22 |
| 3 | Crusaders | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 18 |
| 4 | Ballymena United | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 12 | 11 | 1 | 13 |
| 5 | Cliftonville | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 13 | 10 | 3 | 12 |
| 6 | Warrenpoint Town | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 10 | -1 | 11 |
| 7 | Glenavon | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 14 | -1 | 9 |
| 8 | Portadown | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 17 | -7 | 8 |
| 9 | Dungannon Swifts | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 17 | -11 | 8 |
| 10 | Coleraine | 8 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 13 | -4 | 7 |
| 11 | Glentoran | 7 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 6 |
| 12 | Carrick Rangers | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 16 | -9 | 4 |
Here is this weekend’s fixture list with all games kicking off at 15:00 tomorrow (Saturday 12th December), unless otherwise stated: –
Larne v Linfield (Friday 11th December at 19:45 – live on BBC Sport NI)
Coleraine v Warrenpoint Town
Crusaders v Portadown
Dungannon Swfits v Ballymena United
Glentoran v Carrick Rangers
Glenavon v Cliftonville (Monday 14th December – live on Sky Sports)
This weekend in our Writer’s Prediction League Cameron is first up and as usual it’s three points for a correct result and a point for a correct outcome: –
Cameron
Larne 2-1 Linfield
Coleraine 1-3 Warrenpoint Town
Crusaders 3-0 Portadown
Dungannon Swifts 0-2 Ballymena United
Glentoran 2-0 Carrick Rangers
Glenavon 1-1 Cliftonville
Richard
Larne 2-2 Linfield
Coleraine 0-1 Warrenpoint
Crusaders 0-0 Portadown
Dungannon 2-1 Ballymena
Glentoran 0-1 Carrick
Glenavon 0-1 Cliftonville
Rodney
Larne 1-2 Linfield
Coleraine 2-1 Warrenpoint Town
Crusaders 3-0 Portadown
Dungannon Swifts 2-2 Ballymena United
Glentoran 3-0 Carrick Rangers
Glenavon 2-2 Cliftonville
Adrian
Larne 2-1 Linfield
Coleraine 2-1 Warrenpoint Town
Crusaders 1-1 Portadown
Dungannon Swifts 2-0 Ballymena United
Glentoran 4-0 Carrick Rangers
Glenavon 1-2 Cliftonville
Darren
Larne 2-0 Linfield
Coleraine 0-1 Warrenpoint
Crusaders 3-0 Portadown
Dungannon 0-1 Ballymena
Glentoran 5-0 Carrick
Glenavon 2–0 Cliftonville
Keith
Larne 1-1 Linfield
Coleraine 1-2 Warrenpoint
Crusaders 2-0 Portadown
Dungannon 1-1 Ballymena
Glentoran 0-0 Carrick
Glenavon 0-0 Cliftonville
Here is our current leaderboard: –
| 1. Rodney | 41 |
| 2. Cameron | 34 |
| 3. Richard | 31 |
| 4. Adrian | 29 |
| 5. Keith | 24 |
| 6. Darren | 23 |
As you may already be aware our League of Ireland Charity Writer’s Prediction League finished a few weeks ago with Rodney being declared the winner. Rodney’s chosen charity was Marie Curie Care and we were delighted to send a donation to Marie Curie last week, whilst not a large amount this will hopefully go someway towards helping in these challenging times.
