Forget the cup...Ards game is only show in town

If this was happening around March or April time, it could logically be deduced that there’s some sort of big finale in store to the season, a title run-in or a major cup final.

But when the games which will go a long way to shaping Ballymena United’s 2013/14 campaign are relegation battles against Ards and Warrenpoint Town, then the bleakness of the situation comes into sharper focus.

The outcome of those games won’t, of course, determine Ballymena’s fate there and then - there’s an awful lot of football still to be played.

What those two games - and the one which follows it, against Ballinamallard - will do is either haul the Sky Blues away from the dogfight to avoid the drop or else plant them even more firmly into it.

Two wins would put clear distance between United and the two sides below them and take them out of the pressure cooker situation which is rapidly building.

Two defeats - and as we saw in the corresponding fixtures earlier in the season, that is not as unbelievable as some people thought at that time - and the reality is that Ballymena might very well be bottom of the Danske Bank Premiership table come the end of November.

There are, however, positives of sorts to have come out of the last few weeks, although the main one - creating a bagful of chances - is immediately negated by the inability to convert them.

Many eyebrows have been raised over Glenn Ferguson’s selection of Allan Jenkins at centre-forward in preference to the club’s out-and-out strikers.

I would go so far as to venture that the increase in goalscoring opportunities in those two games in which Jenkins has played ‘up top’ isn’t a coincidence.

The Scot offers a different sort of outlet and it’s his ability to hold the ball up and bring others into play in attacking positions which has been the key to the additional chances created.