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Gareth Fullerton

Glentoran boss Rodney McAree happy to deliver on club owner's Big Two request

Rodney McAree admits he was happy to deliver on Glentoran owner Ali Pour's request with Tuesday's Big Two win over Linfield.

Pour sent McAree a text message ahead of the crunch showdown at the Oval stating 'a 3-0 win will be enough'.

The Glens duly delivered, with two Bobby Burns goals either side of an Aidan Wilson header wrapping up a convincing victory in East Belfast.

Read more: Patrick McClean addresses 'silly rumours' as he clarifies Glentoran exit

The win keeps Glentoran in this season's thrilling title race, but McAree insists the derby success will "mean nothing" if they don't back it up with another positive performance and result against Ballymena United on Friday night.

Revealing the correspondence from club owner Pour, McAree said: "I actually got a text message from the owner before the game basically saying, 'no pressure, a 3-0 win will be enough'.

"So, I was glad to deliver on that.

"But we can't get carried away. We go to Ballymena on Friday night and we need a positive result.

"If we don't then Tuesday's result is irrelevant."

He added: "I thought we were very good against Linfield. The boys al carried out their responsibilities.

"They put in a hell of a shift, and we knew it would take that against a good Linfield side.

"The last two times we played Linfield here we started slow and Linfield applied the pressure, so we had to make sure we started fast in this one.

"Now we move on. It is cliche and things, we are just looking ahead to Friday night.

"The games in hand mean nothing unless we win the games we're involved in. Those games in hand will come around and we have to win them.

"We are in good form in the league and in the quarter-finals of the Irish Cup. We haven't done anything yet."

Much of Tuesday's post-match focus centred on the missiles that were thrown by a section of Linfield's support, which resulted in the game having to be stopped twice.

Glens players Aaron McCarey and Marcus Kane appeared to be struck by items during the game.

McAree said: "Marcus had a cut on the back of his head. They are scenes you don't want to see but it is not our department to deal with that.

"We certainly don't want to see that at games of football. I understand when people get frustrated at their team and they want to see their team win, but it has to be in the right manner and that wasn't the right manner.

"Personally, I want people talking about our performance. We could have scored more in the second half and it could have been a more comfortable scoreline.

"The referee wanted an announcement put across to calm things down. I don't think he wanted to take players off the pitch.

"I thought he controlled it well and made sure we stayed away until things settled down.

"Thankfully nobody is seriously hurt."

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