London City Lionesses defender Poppy Pattinson says that the club’s main goal this season is to be successful as the first women’s only professional team in the Barclays Women’s Super League.
The Pride were promoted to the top tier for the very first time back in May. While promoted teams have so often struggled in the Barclays Women’s Super League, London City Lionesses have made it clear that the only way for their club is up.
When speaking to WSL Full-Time, London City Lionesses defender Pattinson said that making history is the main target for the club this season.
“We want to make history in terms of being the first women’s only club to be successful in the WSL, that’s the main headline in this,” Pattinson said.
“We’ve worked hard in pre-season and new signings have been coming in, so it’s difficult to talk about points in particular. We just want to all come together on our game plan and once that is strong and set, we can start talking about targets. I think game-by-game will work best for us.”
Pattinson accepts that London City Lionesses will be seen as underdogs this season given fellow promoted sides’ struggles in recent years but she says that The Pride want to quickly shake-off that tag.
She said “Obviously, we can expect that [tag] when you look back at previous years’ [promoted sides]. It’s well-known that teams that come up are prime candidates to go back down. We definitely don’t want to be that and we accept that we will be the underdog in most games this year but we want to change that quickly. We start with a big game [against Arsenal] and we want to do our best.
“The investment helps a lot but coming in, I can see that there’s a great structure, the foundations are set really well and staff, players work really well with each other. I think that was a big reason why they were so successful last year. They’ve recruited really well this summer and now, it’s about bringing all of that together to help us survive this season.”
London City Lionesses have built a squad made up of both youth and experience. Pattinson aims to offer her know-how, however, she also sees the opportunity to develop herself.
She said “We have a great blend in terms of players who have won trophies and built great experience and those young players who are thriving and starting out in the WSL. I sit somewhere in-between that; it’s my eighth consecutive season in the WSL but I’m still relatively young at 25. That’s something that I definitely want to use to my advantage; bring my own experiences but also be willing to learn and get to my full potential here as well.”
London City Lionesses’ opening Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Arsenal kicks-off at 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon.