Women's football news
Written by: Joe
Lewes interim manager Craig Gill says his players are well prepared for the trip to Blackburn this weekend after having the game postponed due to a waterlogged pitch a few weeks ago.
The Rooks travel north on Sunday seeking a fifth league win from their last seven outings.
A goal from Ellie Hack earned Lewes a 1-0 victory over Blackburn back in October and victory here could lift the team has high as fifth in the FA Women’s Championship.
Lewes also beat Watford 2-0 before the international break and Gill expects a similar performance from the players this weekend.
“The girls are looking forward to the trip the Blackburn after the disappointment of going up there a few weeks ago and having the game called off two hours before kick off,” says Gill.
“That was after a long journey and an overnight stay in a hotel.
“We’re looking forward to going up there. We know it will be a difficult task. They’re a tough team to play against a we won 1-0 in the home fixture earlier in the season.
“So we’re looking for more of the same from the Watford performance, to be more consistent throughout the 90 minutes and hopefully come away from Blackburn with a positive performance and three points in the bag.”
‘Great morale in the camp’
Gill was able to put the players through their paces during an extra training session on Tuesday thanks to last weekend’s international break.
And he believes that additional time on the training ground will pay off come Sunday.
“Morale in the camp is very high at the moment. We’ve won four of our last six league games, and of course our last game was Watford away – a 2-0 win against a very combative Watford team in poor conditions,” he says.
“The players were excellent. They kept the standards high throughout, passed the ball well in possession, took the two goals well and defended extremely well right the way through the team.
“We’ve had a good training week this week. Obviously there was no game (at the weekend) because of the international break but training has been to an exceptionally high standard.
“There’s great morale in the camp. Enthusiasm is high coming off the back of the win over Watfords. The fact we’ve had an extra day of training has helped.
“We were able to train fully on Tuesday, whereas that would normally be a recovery day for a Sunday game. We trained hard on Tuesday and Wednesday, went through more tactical work on Thursday and Friday has been about reactive and speed work.”
Focus on Blackburn
Rovers have played once since the postponed clash with Lewes at the start of this month. They were downed 4-0 at Sheffield United to extend their winless run across all competitions to six games.
Boss Gemma Donnelly has since brought in a new first-team coach in Matt Bee.
Discussing the club’s recent form following the loss at Sheffield United, Donnelly told the club’s official website: “We work relentlessly on finishing and building from midfield, and you can see that, but we just can’t score.
“We can’t keep going into games where we’re no threat in front of goal and we can’t finish. We need to all sit down, players and staff, and get out heads together to sort it out because we can’t carry on like this.”
Blackburn vs Lewes kicks off at 12pm on Sunday, 27 February at Bamber Bridge.