London City Lionesses head coach Melissa Phillips believes that third tier club Portsmouth will provide a good test for her side at Princes Park this afternoon.
The Pride meet Pompey in their rescheduled Vitality Women’s FA Cup third round tie. The winners of the tie will travel to The Breyer Group Stadium to face top tier side Tottenham Hotspur in the fourth round later this month.
With London City Lionesses facing big challenges in the Barclays Women’s Championship in the coming weeks, head coach Phillips could make some changes to her side this afternoon. She believes that Portsmouth will provide her side with a test but whichever players are selected to start the match will be up to the challenge.
“We are confident in our team selection regardless of which players we put out on the pitch,” Phillips said when speaking to FAWSL Full-Time. “The objective this weekend is to advance and then the next objective is to make sure that we are prepared for the upcoming games (in the league).
“We want to make sure that as many players as possible get as many minutes to ensure that we have that match freshness and fitness.
“We have six games on the bounce. We were always going to put a game in this weekend to prepare ourselves coming back off the break. We know that Portsmouth will be a fantastic challenge for us leading into a couple of difficult games.”
Portsmouth have an ambition to reach the elite game in the coming years and they will arrive in Dartford on the back of four consecutive clean sheets in all competitions. Phillips expects Pompey to put players behind the ball but equally, the third tier side could come out and play in a bid to measure where they are against the Barclays Women’s Championship leaders.
She said “I definitely think they’ll come ready to play. Like any cup game, you use it to really measure yourself and see where you fall short and see where you get stretched, especially when you are competing towards the top of your league and you are playing someone from the league above. You want to see where you are and where you stand.
“I’m sure that they’ll be a difficult opposition for us. No team is easy to break down if they sit players behind the ball as well. Whatever challenge we are presented with, we are prepared for that and it is really just about ourselves and our own preparation leading into this block.”
London City Lionesses’ Vitality Women’s FA Cup third round tie against Portsmouth kicks-off at 1pm. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.
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