Ferguson enjoying busy schedule for Ballymena United

The Ballymena United boss is more than happy to accept a busy fixture schedule as a by-product of a run of success on the pitch.

As a player at Linfield, Ferguson would have been accustomed to a routine of Saturday-midweek-Saturday as the Blues vied for most of the silverware on offer.

And after guiding the Sky Blues to a County Antrim Shield final, Ferguson is aiming to put one over on his former club as Ballymena take on Linfield in Monday’s Irn Bru League Cup quarter-final at the Showgrounds (7.45pm) – the first of a triumvirate of meetings between the sides inside the next month.

“At the start of the season if someone had said to us we would be playing four games in nine days and they would include a County Antrim Shield semi-final and an Irn Bru Cup quarter-final we would probably have taken their hand off,” said Ferguson, whose side have lost just twice in their last 30 games.

“It means we have to shuffle the squad around and look at injuries and training methods to accommodate all the games but we’re loving it.

“We’re playing big games against big teams and the boys are buzzing and are looking forward to the challenges ahead.

“We have Linfield back-to-back in the league and Shield final later in the month and we keep wanting to test ourselves against the best.

“We want to continue to make strides in the right direction so over the three games we want to compete with them as much as we can.”

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