Manchester United head coach Marc Skinner says that his side must be at their very best when they take on an Aston Villa side with plenty of character and identity at the Leigh Sports Village this afternoon.
The Red Devils come up against a Villa side who have lost five out of six in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League but they have generally performed quite well in some of those games.
When speaking in his pre-match press conference, Skinner said that he expects Aston Villa to come to Leigh full of the personality of head coach Carla Ward.
“When I’ve watched their games, they’ve been really tight and there have been a couple where they have been really close,” Skinner said. “I think of City away, it was 0-0 at half-time and it was really close.
“What you expect from Carla’s team anyway is that dogged, rugged performance where they have respect for the opponent but they are not going to give them that respect on the field. They play with their coach’s personality, Carla’s direct and wants her team to take control of games.
“For us, we have got to continue to develop our style, our principles and our actions. What I have liked in the last few weeks is that we have turned on our aggressive nature, turned on our instincts to hurt the opponent when we have been on top and I want more of that, I still want us to be ruthless in both boxes.
“We want to control the game as much as we can, dictate as much as we can against a very good team.”
Manchester United have the opportunity to go into the winter break with three consecutive wins but Skinner says that his side must take nothing for granted.
He said “Three wins would be great but we don’t deserve to get anything against Villa without earning it. We have to do all of the ugly things, make sure that we are ruthless in the box, defend the right areas because Aston Villa have very high potential in their counter attacks in the way that they progress.
“We have to make sure that we are at our very best if we are going to win this game, even then, we can’t guarantee anything but what we can guarantee is that we can give everything to get the result and that’s all I expect from our team – be on the edge, live on the edge in our defending and our attacking then you will see the very best of Manchester United.”
The Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture between Manchester United and Aston Villa kicks-off at noon. Tickets for the match can be purchased by clicking here.
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