Southampton defender Ella Morris says that it is important that the team go to Bristol City with confidence but not arrogance this weekend.
The Saints achieved the impressive feat of beating Barclays Women’s Championship title favourites Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park last weekend and they will now travel to Ashton Gate to face the current league leaders Bristol City.
After defeating Crystal Palace, Southampton will believe that they can record another big result against The Robins. Defender Morris says that while The Saints are confident going into this weekend, they must not overstep the mark and become arrogant.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence from it (the Crystal Palace result),” Morris told FAWSL Full-Time. “Going into the next game, you’ve got to maintain that confidence but don’t be arrogant, don’t expect to win again. We’ve got to be confident going into the next game, play how we want to play and not expect to play well just because we’ve been playing well. We’ve got to dig out the result again.
“For us, we’ve got to take the confidence from winning and carry on the momentum that we’ve got without being a bit arrogant going into it.”
The Barclays Women’s Championship has already produced many tight scorelines with a number of teams competing at similar high levels. Morris went on to say that protecting a scoreline is just as important as trying to score more goals.
She said “Mentally, we have talked about being mature in our playing style, recognising that when we are winning, we don’t necessarily need to keep going for more goals.
“Last season, some of our scorelines were 9-0, 8-0 so you could keep going for goals. This season, you’ve got that one goal or two goals and you don’t necessarily need to keep pushing for more because you can become a bit more exposed.
“Mentally, we are understanding how to manage games better and dig out those results rather than going for the glory scorelines.”
Southampton have shown continuous progression in their three results so far this season and Morris believes that the club are now finding their feet in the Barclays Women’s Championship.
“It is a league that you almost have to settle yourselves into a bit,” the defender said. “I believe that we have done that well, we have gone from a loss to a draw and now a win against a strong side at a Premier League ground. We want to keep building on that and keep pushing for more wins.
“It is step up and is something that we have been preparing for and something that has been in the process for quite a while now.”
Southampton’s latest Barclays Women’s Championship fixture at Bristol City kicks-off at 3pm on Sunday afternoon.