London City Lionesses’ interim head coach Nikita Runnacles says that anything can happen in the final two rounds of matches in the Barclays Women’s Championship and that her side must simply do what they can to affect the title race.
The Pride go into their penultimate fixture against Blackburn Rovers in third position in the table, six points adrift of league leaders Bristol City. London City Lionesses need both Bristol City and second-placed Birmingham City to lose their respective matches whilst defeating Blackburn Rovers themselves to take their promotion bid to the final day. Bristol City face Charlton Athletic at Ashton Gate, a venue where they have won just once in seven matches, while Birmingham City travel to the North East to face a Durham side who are unbeaten at home in 2023.
When speaking in the pre-match press conference, London City Lionesses’ interim boss Runnacles said that anything can happen in football and that her side must do their job.
“We’ve been in this position now for a couple of weeks where it’s out of our control,” Runnacles said. “We just need to focus on what we can do and that’s exactly how we approach this week.
“It’s not over until the points say that it is. We are in a position where anything can happen and that’s football, anything can happen at any time. We just need to make sure that we are ready when or if it does happen to put ourselves in and around that area.
“It’s about focusing on us and what we can do. We need to take the chances that we create.”
In the reverse fixture at Princes Park, Blackburn Rovers stifled the London City Lionesses attack as they held The Pride to a goalless draw. Runnacles anticipates another battle but her side must make effective use of the ball to break their latest opponents down.
She said “We know that Blackburn will accept that we will dominate the possession and they will go into their defensive shape and make it difficult for us to break down. It is a question that we have to answer in terms of our movement, our creativity and our patience on the ball; not getting frustrated and knowing that we will have a lot of the ball.
“We would expect our possession stats to be really high but it is about what we do with the ball, we need to move it quickly.
“We know that they’ll want to put a tackle on us early, so we need to make sure that we are in a position that we don’t get involved in that battle. We need to move the ball around with speed, with minimal touches and try to break down their shape.”
London City Lionesses’ Barclays Women’s Championship fixture at Blackburn Rovers kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.