BAKER IS LOOKING TO FUTURE

Striker believes young Breda lads will be better for experience next season

to sign me a few times before this – a couple of times at Ards Rangers and then when he initially joined Knockbreda, so I appreciated that and I’m glad I can now work under him.

“It isn’t long until I’m 30 and when you’re at this stage in your career, you don’t want to be watching on the bench, you want to be playing.

“There are some brilliant players in the Amateur League and I enjoyed my time at Derriaghy but this is a different level.

“For our game at Larne there were 1,200 fans at the game and there are big, big clubs in this league, so it’s fantastic to be a part of it.

“A team like Ballinamallard struggled for months at the start of the season and even though they’ve turned that situation around, it shows you what the level is.”

Baker missed six weeks of action after being involved in a road traffic accident in November and, despite now being back to full fitness, he lamented how injuries have taken their toll on a relatively small squad.

“A big problem for us this year has been struggling to get a consistent team out,” the striker concluded. “Obviously all teams are impacted by this throughout the season, but we have had a lot of injuries and suspensions and maybe compared to other clubs, we don’t have the same depth in our squad.

“We know we have a gap to the bottom two teams but if one or both of them pick up a run of form, those gaps can close very quickly.

“We want to be winning the majority of our games from now until the end of the season because we believe we have more quality than the teams around us, but we need to stay fully focused.”