Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ONLY END OF ROUND 1
Mulgrew dismisses notion of early knockouts and expects the title fight to go distance
Cliftonville v Linfield
Tonight, 7.45pm
LINFIELD captain Jamie Mulgrew says it’s wildly premature to talk about two or three horse races in this year’s Irish League title chase.
Many pundits believe the current top three of the Blues, Larne and Crusaders are set to battle it out for local football’s greatest prize.
But Mulgrew, who has lifted the Gibson Cups nine times in 15 illustrious years at Windsor Park, says it’s too early to make rash predictions.
Ahead of tonight’s trip to Cliftonville, the influential midfielder said: “How many games have we played – 12 or 13? How can you write anyone off after 12 or 13 games?
“Usually at this stage of the year we are halfway through the season, but that isn’t the case this year for obvious reasons. We’re only really through one round of fixtures.
“All it takes is for one of the current top three to have two or three bad results and things will change very quickly.
“It’s a very competitive league and you’ve got the likes of Ballymena in fourth, Coleraine, who have players back from injury, and Cliftonville who can be in the mix.
“Every year the league is getting better and there are so many tough games, so it is far too early to predict anything.”
Linfield head to Solitude sitting top of the table and on the back of three straight wins in the league; the perfect response to a 3-1 defeat at Larne six weeks ago.
“We have responded well after a disappointing result down at Larne, but we expect another very tough game against Cliftonville,” said Mulgrew.
“I watched their 2-2 draw with Crusaders a few weeks back and I’m sure they feel hard done by because from my point of view, they deserved to win that game.
“Crusaders are another top team up there challenging so the fact Cliftonville competed very well against them means they’ll obviously be very dangerous opponents.”
With the threat of Covid postponements and circuit breakers ever present, it remains to be seen if the Premiership is completed as a 38-game campaign before the end of May.
A curtailment policy is in place where the league can be decided at a number of different staging posts, including 22 and 33 games, if the pandemic forces a premature end to the season.
And with a question mark hanging over the length of the campaign, Mulgrew accepts there’s an added incentive to stay top for the duration of the campaign.
“It would be great if we get all the games played, but nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “I just think it’s important we look after ourselves and keep winning games.”