Sunderland Women’s assistant Head Coach Steph Libbey offered her thoughts ahead of the trip to Birmingham on Sunday.
Libbey discussed preparations from this week ahead of the Barclays Women’s Championship fixture at St. Andrew’s.
“We’ve had a bit of a change to the week with the Blackburn game being postponed so we’ve had to tweak our plans and the players have been really receptive,” Libbey said.
“They’ve come in really buoyant after such a good result last weekend and we’re really looking forward to it.
“Birmingham are a good side and we love a good test. I think we’ve prepared well and hopefully the girls can execute what we’ve planned to do.”
After a scintillating performance last weekend in the River Wear Derby – the Lasses coming from behind twice to win 3-2 at Eppleton – the assistant Head Coach highlighted the positives to take from the game, as well as utilising the momentum from such a result.
“There were some massive positives that came out of that game. The resilience of the group – we went down twice and got back into the game and we were able to see it through and that shows really good character and togetherness that we’ve got and we need to build on that.
“We know we didn’t perform as well in the first half of the season as we would have liked but hopefully that momentum is something we can take into the next few games and push ourselves on away from the bottom of the pack.”
The Lasses have won their last two league games, winning three out of the last four in all competitions, and Libbey wants the team to keep that winning feeling alive.
“I think once you get that feeling, it’s something that you want to retain and work hard to keep and the girls have now got that.
“I’m sure they’ll do everything within their power to execute what we want at the weekend and hopefully come away with a really positive performance as well as a result.”
Finally, Libbey discussed the threat the opposition – a WSL side last season – poses in what will be a tough test for the Lasses.
“We know it’s not going to be an easy game. We played them earlier on in the season and it was one of our toughest games that we’ve come against so far and we’re not going to take them lightly.
“They’re another full-time outfit and they’ve got experienced staff.
“We want to undo a lot of the things that happened in that game earlier on in the season and put out a good performance more than anything that our fans can be proud of like I’m sure they were last weekend.”