Aston Villa head into their final stretch of fixtures for the 2021/22 season on Sunday as they take on Tottenham Hotspur.
Carla Ward's side head to The Hive to face an impressive Spurs outfit that still have aspirations of a top-four finish with only a handful of games to go.
And with a back-to-back against title contenders Chelsea to follow Sunday's clash, Rehanne Skinner will have her sights firmly set on picking up maximum points against Villa.
We go into Sunday afternoon's clash having arrested a three-game losing run last time out against Reading.
The Royals led, albeit against the run of play, through Justine Vanhaevermaet's second-half penalty.
But Ramona Petzelberger popped up at the back post in the closing stages to salvage a point for Villa after defeats to Everton, Brighton and Chelsea.
Now, we head into our final four games of the season hoping to pick up more points as well as climb one or two places in the league table.
Despite the lofty league position Spurs call their own, they are an outfit that Villa feel well within their rights to try and take points from on Sunday afternoon.]
Just 14 months ago, we defeated Skinner's side at the Banks's Stadium on our way to final-day survival.
Carla Ward addressed the media on Friday morning ahead of this weekend's game against Spurs and had this to say:
"When we played Tottenham last time we were disappointed that big decisions didn’t go our way. We have to be ready to go again but I have to be honest, that game hurt us because I felt we did enough like we have in a lot of games. There’s probably still some hurt from that but Tottenham have had a fantastic season. They are a well-organised side and I’ve admired the work that’s been done there. We know it will be a tough afternoon, we really do. They have probably exceeded expectations this season. We will go there to win the game. The message has been that all week. We’re going for the win.”
"Tottenham have been resolute, compact and tight. We have had the ability to unlock all defences this season, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City so we’ll continue to work and try to get into their final third. They’re not conceding many but they’re not scoring many – a bit like us. We’ll just continue to try to break them down and find the back of the net. That’s all we need to do. We’ve been brilliant, it’s just that little ingredient in the final third. Our forwards have been sensational this week. They have been hungry, they have been sharp and I pulled a couple of them yesterday and reminded them of that. The response I got was that they are ready and feeling it because they have been flying this week. We want to see that replicated in games and I have no doubt that once one or two go in, there might be three or four.”
The Last Meeting
The Boss
Carla Ward spoke to VillaTV to preview this weekend's trip to Spurs...
Laura Blindkilde Brown
Our attacking midfielder also joined VillaTV to look back at her sparkling assist against Reading as well as looking ahead to this weekend...
