Bristol City head coach Lauren Smith says that it is not crucial that her side collect more points before the Christmas break.
The Robins end the first half of the Barclays Women’s Super League season with fixtures against Liverpool and Chelsea. Bristol City are currently bottom of the table after collecting four points from their opening eight matches.
While Bristol City’s pre-Christmas run-in is tough, the club face two sides currently in the bottom half of the table in January in the form of Brighton & Hove Albion and West Ham United. When speaking to the media ahead of the Liverpool game, Bristol City boss Smith said that points before the Christmas break would be nice but the big opportunity to progress comes in January.
“We’ve got to a good place now but we’ve got two games against tough opponents in Liverpool and Chelsea,” Smith said. “Right now, we are looking at January being a huge month for us with the opposition that we have got.
“We would absolutely love to pick up points but is that the be all and end all right now? I think we will be safe to know that we can go after it in January as well.”
This weekend’s opponents Liverpool are a year ahead of Bristol City in terms of their development after being promoted back to the Barclays Women’s Super League in 2022. Smith knows that her side will face a difficult task when they travel to Prenton Park.
She said “They’re having a great season. They got a foothold last year and this season, they’ve gone quite hard.
“They’re a very physical team, they attack in straight lines at you and they’ve got some pacey players. They’ve shown that they are really hard to beat, their back line is strong.
“It is going to be a challenge. They’ve shown that they are in a good place but we need to match that, make sure that we defend well against those pacey players and find ways of getting in-between their back-five.”
Bristol City have given their all against some tough opponents so far this season but Smith is still looking for an improvement both in and out of possession.
“There are a couple of key areas for us to work on,” the Bristol City boss said. “We kept a clean sheet for a long period (against Manchester United) but we have to make sure that when that happens, we don’t slip up. Our focus over 90 minutes is still something that we are working on, we’ve had it a couple of times but it is about consistency. I also want us to focus on having the ball a little bit more and think about what we do with it.”
Bristol City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Liverpool kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.
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