Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
HE’S A CANNY OPERATOR..
Aaron heaps praise on boss Kearney’s abilities
COLERAINE star Aaron Canning isn’t surprised by the impact boss Oran Kearney has made on his return to the club. After opting to return from Scotland for family reasons in the summer, Kearney is working wonders in his second spell at the Showgrounds.
Tipped to endure a transitional season, the Bannsiders sit top of the Premiership a third of the way through the campaign. Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Linfield was the latest statement win for Kearney’s men, who are unbeaten in 13 league games this season. Canning, a totem at the heart of Coleraine’s defence, said: “Oran is the best manager I’ve played under and his man management is the best I’ve seen. “He has a vision of where he wants to take this club and everyone buys into that. It’s no surprise to me how we’re playing under him, absolutely not. “We believe we are as good as any team in this league and there’s no reason why we can’t go on and win major trophies.”
Coleraine, now with seven clean sheets in their 13 league outings, won Saturday’s showdown, played out in front of 3,400 fans, in the 82nd minute.
Canning (inset) got his head to a Jamie Glackin corner and the ball ricocheted into the net off unfortunate Blues defender Mark Stafford.
“I don’t know if it’s mine or an own goal, but it doesn’t matter,” said Canning.
“It was a big win and in the context of the league table we had to beat Linfield because they were two points behind us with two games in hand.
“It was also nice to keep a clean sheet because we pride ourselves on not conceding goals.
“Clean sheets are really important to us because we know we have the firepower to score goals.
“We know if we keep clean sheets we’ll win a lot of games.”
While Bastien Hery rattled the post for Linfield in the first half, it was a largely toothless display from the champions.
Boss David Healy said: “We changed shape in the second half and had enough attacking talent on the pitch, but didn’t really create enough.”