London City Lionesses head coach Melissa Phillips says that her side are looking forward to this weekend’s fixture against an equally as ambitious Birmingham City team.
Both teams are keen to be in the promotion mix come the business end of the season, meaning that the battle for three points at Princes Park this weekend will be keenly-contested.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time, London City Lionesses boss Phillips said that it will be difficult for Birmingham City to win the title at the first attempt but she knows how ambitious the Midlands club are when it comes to achieving their goals.
“If you look at the last three seasons, it has been difficult for any team who has come down from the WSL to adjust to the level of the Championship because it is very competitive,” Phillips said.
“They’ve got a fantastic squad, they’ve got a lot of high level players – internationals in that squad that we are very familiar with and we’ve got two former Birmingham players ourselves in Jamie (Napier) and Sarah (Ewens).
“It’ll be a fun match-up, we played them in the cup last year and we’ve got them in the cup again this year. I’m sure it’ll be a rival match in some capacity because we are both very ambitious teams.”
After seven games, London City Lionesses very much have promotion in their own hands. Phillips wants her side to simply keep focusing on the next game and picking up more points.
She said “You’ve got to pick up a minimum of four points from every team to be in contention. It is a very long season but we are very excited that we still have Bristol to play twice.
“The next game is a big game, every game is a big game, we are excited to play Birmingham who are an incredibly ambitious team. Like ourselves, they want to bounce straight back up, we want to make the league and that’s where our focus lies. You have to take it game-by-game throughout the season and stay the course, continue to pick up points everywhere you can.
“We’ve just got three more league matches and some cup matches to close out this side of the year. We are excited about the quality of the games coming up (against Birmingham City, Sheffield United and Southampton) and the fact that they should be a little more open rather than transitional.”
London City Lionesses’ Barclays Women’s Championship fixture against Birmingham City kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday afternoon. Tickets remain available and can be purchased by clicking here.
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