London City Lionesses head coach expecting competitive London derby against Addicks

London City Lionesses head coach Melissa Phillips is expecting another competitive match in the FA Women’s Championship when her side travel to Charlton Athletic on Sunday.

Both sides go into the London derby having collecting positive results from their last fixtures with London City Lionesses having defeated Leicester City 4-1 while Charlton Athletic drew 1-1 at Durham after leading until the final seconds of the game.

With both sides hoping to climb the FA Women’s Championship table this weekend, London City Lionesses head coach Phillips has admitted that she is expecting a really competitive affair at The Oakwood when speaking to FA Women’s Super League Full-Time this morning.

She said “Charlton have put together some good performances and we expect a challenge on Sunday.

“When we played them in pre-season, the game was extremely competitive, they are a very hard-working team so we will have to match that and ultimately, as you can see with the league it’s the team that shows up and puts in the best performance on the day that gets the result.”

The recent victory over Leicester City at Princes Park saw The Pride show their true potential for the first time this season and Phillips went on to highlight the key contributing factors to that victory, attributes which will also need to be replicated at Charlton Athletic on Sunday.

“The result was much-deserved from the performance that we put out on the field that day” Phillips added. “We have been building on belief within our identity.

“It was a really well-deserved performance, we wanted it, we worked for it, we worked together and there was a sense of commitment, belief and resilience throughout the match that gave us an edge going into it.

“Only positive things come from that result.”

Sunday’s fixture at Charlton Athletic comes on Women’s Football Weekend ’20. Despite games across the weekend being forced to be played behind-closed-doors, Phillips still believes that the event is one for everyone associated with the game to celebrate.

The London City Lionesses head coach said “The growth of women’s football in this country is unbelievable.

“It’s really exciting to have Women’s Football Weekend and be able to catch matches all day long and it’ll be exciting for our fans to watch us live.

“Any time that we can celebrate the women’s game and the growth of it is a great thing and we will just continue to build on that.”

London City Lionesses’ FA Women’s Championship fixture against Charlton Athletic at The Oakwood on Sunday will kick-off at 2pm and will be streamed live via the hosts’ official media channels. Full details will be provided in due course.