Carla Ward spoke to media at Bodymoor Heath on Friday morning as she looked ahead to Sunday’s Barclays WSL encounter against Bristol City.
Aston Villa Women's manager discussed Wednesday night's Conti Cup victory over Sheffield United, responding to our recent league form, what she expects from the Vixens and provided an update on the latest team news.
Here’s what she had to say…
On Wednesday's cup win...
“With a clean sheet and five goals, I did enjoy it. It probably came at the right time, it was a moment that we needed. If you came into the environment, you wouldn’t have known we’d lost five games. The group are wholeheartedly together and they want to turn things around. There’s certainly a bite about the group which they showed on Wednesday. Now it’s about taking that into the weekend.”
On learnings during a difficult spell...
“It’s the first time I’ve faced this [type of challenge]. You have to navigate these moments, you have to learn from them. You have to stick together, most importantly. My job is to remind [the players] of how good they are and their qualities. That’s been the most important thing, and then on Wednesday night we managed to go out and implement what we wanted to.”
On the upcoming run of games...
“On Monday morning we looked at the rest of November and set ourselves targets. We know what we want to go after. The only way we can look now is forward. We’ll take the hurt and take the anger and look forward to the rest of November. They’re all fixtures that we want to try and pick up points from.”
On Bristol City...
“I’ve been impressed with the way they’ve set up. Last night [against Arsenal] they showed a lot of heart, quality and desire. Lauren [Smith]’s got them set up in a good way. They’ve shown in the last couple of weeks that they’re not just here to be the whipping boys as some may have thought in pre-season. This is going to be a tough game, it’s not a given.”
