London City Lionesses head coach Melissa Phillips says that this weekend’s FA Women’s Championship fixture at Blackburn Rovers will be another incredibly difficult game.
Rovers have collected six points from an available 12 so far this season while they are the only team to have taken points from early season league leaders Sheffield United.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time ahead of her side’s trip to The Sir Tom Finney Stadium this weekend, London City Lionesses boss Phillips said that she expects Blackburn Rovers to provide another tremendously difficult challenge.
“Every team that we face in this league will be extremely competitive,” Phillips said. “Even the Coventry United match, they did an excellent job transitioning to a full-time model with their summer recruitment so we knew it would be a competitive game despite them not having picked up an early result.
“Blackburn will be the same, they have already picked up some results and are incredibly difficult to play against at home, we know that it will be a tough challenge for us.
“When we went up there last year, they got a penalty and kind of sat in on us, they are always super well-organised defensively. We know they really will be a test for us and we really want to exert ourselves early on and put our stamp on the game.”
After the first month of FA Women’s Championship action, London City Lionesses find themselves two points from the league summit and just three points above tenth position. Phillips went on to say that the club are looking at each game on it’s own merit, as well as considering monthly blocks of matches.
She added “We have looked at the season breaking it down month-by-month, it’s pretty much a three-game stint every month or a three-game stint before you go into an international break. We are looking at each game individually but we are wanting to pick up as many points per month as we possibly can.
“It is always going to be pivotal given how competitive the league is and the next big match for us is Blackburn away on Sunday.”
England’s petrol crisis has hit the headlines this week with the south of the country having suffered badly. While some non-league games have been postponed, Phillips said that the battle for petrol has not affected her side’s preparations for Sunday.
“No, nothing really,” Phillips said when asked whether the petrol crisis had affected training plans. “Probably more from a staff standpoint we’ve been raising a few eyebrows about our commute in.
“We’ve got a lot of girls local to Dartford and we’ve got a lot who travel by train in together and a handful of us who do drive but fighting the M25 traffic with the roundabouts clogged to get petrol is more of a battle than it is to get the petrol.
“All good from a preparative standpoint for us.”
London City Lionesses’ FA Women’s Championship fixture at Blackburn Rovers kicks-off at noon on Sunday.
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