The Cliftonville & Crusaders head coaches McLaughlin and Baxter are both fearful of and feeling excited about this crucial game in the higher part of the Premiership standings.
- Cliftonville is in the best form (6-0-0) in Premiership
- Crusaders have the most scored goals (19) in Premiership
One slightly interesting match fact is that this game is played on artifical turf and that the visiting Crusaders have a different surface at their stadium (grass). The impact of this is hard to measure exactly, but the visitors stats on artifical turf is 1-3-2 (win-draw-loss) from six matches.
This is a match between teams from the same area, a local derby. The community is buzzing.
We should expect both teams to be fresh and ready for this match, as there is some time since both teams last played. Let's have a look at how the teams are doing!
Cliftonville form and stats
As mentioned below, Cliftonville are feasting on a winning streak here so far with maximum points from their first 3 Premiership games.
The Cliftonville goalkeeper Nathan Gartside is looking to record 90 more "clean sheet" minutes as his team have now played 243 minutes without conceding a goal in the Premiership.
A nice win for Cliftonville last time playing, versus Newry City AFC. That was also a home game and the match ended 4-0 with Curran and Hale scoring for the victors. As indicated by the result mentioned above, Cliftonville played a great game against Newry City AFC and beat them comfortably. Expectations are high for this one. Hale was absolutely essential when Cliftonville beat Newry City AFC 4-0, scoring three goals.
Preceding that game, a home defeat in the Challenge Cup against Queen's Park. The bookmakers consider this a fairly even contest. One could say only the home advantage separates the teams. It could be relevant to look at how Cliftonville have performed in matches similar to this (as small favourites). Our database has found 7 matches with the results: Won 5, drawn 1 and lost 1.
Another home game is coming up fairly shortly for the hosts, as Linfield are coming to town in four days.
It's goals goals goals for Cliftonville who have scored 11 goals from 3 league home games. On the other hand, Cliftonville have conceded 4 goals.
Crusaders form and stats
Crusaders are doing rather OK so far in their away games in the Premiership, having played 3 games and collected 3 points (1 win, 0 draws and 2 losses).
Crusaders are travelling again after losing away to Carrick Rangers in their previous match (3-4). That defeat was their first after five consecutive league games winning points. An off the wall game with plenty of goals last time out for Crusaders, as mentioned above. 7 goals in that fun game, will this fixture be as much fun? Lowry has bagged at least one goal for this side three fixtures in a row. The capability!
A home win before that, celebrating 3-0 vs Ballymena United.So, this is expected to be a close game, an even contest. Looking at earlier matches with Crusaders playing away and similar expectations, we found 7 relevant matches. Results were 2 Crusaders wins, 1 draw and 4 defeats.
People interested in "over 2,5 goals" betting will like to know that Crusaders concede an average of more than 2,5 goals per away match all on their own.
Head 2 Head
Head-2-head stats last ten meetings: one - seven - two (Cliftonville wins - draws - Crusaders wins). As for goals, four matches ended with three or more goals (over 2,5), six had two or less.
Top Goalscorers
  R. Hale 7 goals |  P. Lowry 6 goals | R. Curran 5 goals |
Cliftonville missing players
Crusaders missing players
| Cliftonville | Crusaders | ||||||
| Total | Home | vs | Statistics | Stat | vs | Away | Total |
| 7 | 3 | 0 | Played | P | 1 | 3 | 8 |
| 6 | 3 | 0 | Won | W | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | Drew | D | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | Lost | L | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 17 | 11 | 0 | Scored | S | 1 | 6 | 19 |
| 9 | 4 | 0 | Conceded | C | 3 | 8 | 12 |
| 100% | 100% | 0% | Over 0.5 | O 0.5 | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 86% | 100% | 0% | Over 1.5 | O 1.5 | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 86% | 100% | 0% | Over 2.5 | O 2.5 | 100% | 100% | 88% |
| 57% | 100% | 0% | Over 3.5 | O 3.5 | 100% | 67% | 38% |
| 29% | 67% | 0% | Over 4.5 | O 4.5 | 0% | 33% | 25% |
| 71% | 67% | 0% | BTTS | BTTS | 100% | 100% | 88% |
| 29% | 33% | 0% | Clean Sheets | C S | 0% | 0% | 12% |
| 0% | 0% | 0% | Failed to Score | F T | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 4.1 | 3.7 | 0 | Corners for (avg) | C F | 6 | 6.3 | 5.9 |
| 2.1 | 0.3 | 0 | Corners against (avg) | C A | 9 | 6.7 | 5.2 |
| 1.3 | 1.3 | 0 | Yellow cards (avg) | Y C | 2 | 2.3 | 1.9 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | Red cards | R C | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 10.9 | 11.3 | 0 | Shots (avg) | S ( | 10 | 16.3 | 12.2 |
| 5.6 | 7 | 0 | Shots on Target (avg) | S O | 1 | 5.3 | 5.4 |
| 44% | 52% | 0% | Goal Efficiency | G E | 100% | 38% | 44% |
| 7.4 | 6.3 | 0 | Shots against (avg) | S A | 12 | 8 | 6.1 |
| 4 | 3.7 | 0 | Shots on Target against (avg) | S O | 5 | 4.7 | 3.1 |
- All of Cliftonville's home-matches have had more than 3,5 goals.
- All of Crusaders's away-matches have had more than 2,5 goals.
- Cliftonville have scored in all their matches so far.
- Cliftonville have won all their matches at home so far.
- Cliftonville have won at least twice as many corners as they have conceded at home.
- Cliftonville haven’t played a single 0-0 game.
- Cliftonville is in the best form (6-0-0) in Premiership
- Crusaders have scored in all their matches so far.
- Crusaders have the most matches over the total-line (7) in Premiership
- Crusaders have the most points from losing position (9) in Premiership
- Crusaders have the most scored goals (19) in Premiership
- Crusaders have the most scored goals in the second half (12) in Premiership
- Crusaders haven’t played a single 0-0 game.
| Total | Home | Away | |||||||||||||||||||
| # | Team | MP | W | D | L | F | A | MP | W | D | L | F | A | MP | W | D | L | F | A | +/- | P |
| 1 | Cliftonville | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 9 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 18 |
| 2 | Larne | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 17 |
| 3 | Glentoran | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 16 |
| 4 | Crusaders | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 19 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 13 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 16 |
| 5 | Coleraine | 8 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 17 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 5 | 8 | 15 |
| 6 | Carrick Rangers | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 13 |
| 7 | Linfield | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 9 | 12 |
| 8 | Glenavon | 7 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 4 | -4 | 6 |
| 9 | Newry City AFC | 8 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 9 | 17 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 12 | -8 | 6 |
| 10 | Ballymena United | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | -10 | 4 |
| 11 | Dungannon Swifts | 8 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 19 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 10 | -14 | 3 |
| 12 | Portadown | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 17 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 8 | -14 | 1 |
