📏 Form Guide

Ballymena United

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Ballymena United won’t want a repeat of their last result here following the 2-1 Premiership losing effort in their last game against Glentoran.

The only scorer from Ballymena United was Igor Rutkowski (33'). Aaron McEneff (45', 51') was the scorer for Glentoran.

It has been all too rare in recent games that Ballymena United haven’t conceded. It will be a concern for them that Ballymena United have failed to prevent opponents from scoring in 6 of their previous 6 clashes, letting in 12 goals in the process. Still, time will tell if that pattern might persist here in this game.

Their previous form shows that Ballymena United:

• have not been beaten in the league by Crusaders in their last 2 games.
• haven't won against Crusaders in their last 9 matches in the league.

Crusaders

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In the game prior to this, Crusaders drew 2-2 in the Premiership match with Bangor.

For Crusaders, goals were scored by Stewart Nixon (55') and Fraser Bryden (78'). Harry Lynch (40') and Ben Cushnie (50') scored for Bangor.

Indicating their predisposition for action-packed encounters, we’ve had goals 23 times in the last six games in which Crusaders have played, making it an average of 3.83 goals each clash. Opposition teams have hit 16 from this total.

Ahead of this clash, Crusaders have not lost to Ballymena United when having played them away from home in the previous 5 league matches. A very good record, indeed.

↔️ Head to head

A review of their past head to head meetings stretching back to 09/03/2024 shows that these encounters have not been happy ones for Ballymena United. They’ve not been able to get any wins at all whereas Crusaders have dominated them, getting wins in 67 per cent of those ties.

A sum of 18 goals were shared by the two clubs throughout the course of those matches, with 6 from Sky Blues and 12 created by The Hatchetmen. The average goals per game has been 3.

The previous league encounter between these clubs was Premiership match day 17 on 22/11/2025 when it finished Ballymena United 2-2 Crusaders.

The match was refereed by Michael McKenna.

🗞️ Team News: Ballymena United

There aren’t many personnel worries, with just a single fitness concern for the Ballymena United manager Oran Kearney to be concerned about thanks to an almost full-strength squad. Donal Rocks (Knock) will miss out.

🗞️ Team News: Crusaders

Thanks to a mainly healthy group of players, there’s just a single fitness problem for the Crusaders boss Declan Caddell to be concerned about. Fraser Bryden (Knock) won’t be playing here.

🔮 Prediction

Our assessment is that Crusaders should get enough chances to score a goal against this Ballymena United side, however it might not be as many as the goals that they could concede.

We’re expecting a close game with a 2-1 winning score for Ballymena United at the end of this one. It really should be an interesting one.

Victor Martins, 19:06 17/02/2026