This Sunday, Saints head away to St Andrews for their match against Birmingham. It’s scary to say it, but this game marks the fourth to last away game of the season, and everything is still looking very close at the top! After the performance and loss to Palace in the league a couple of weeks ago, let’s hope we see a complete turn around and a dominating and exciting display from the get-go! Let’s all get behind the girls, cheer them on to a hopeful victory!
Last time out
The last time we played Birmingham was back in October where unfortunately, we lost 3-1 at our beloved Snows Stadium. In all honesty, it looked as if only one team wanted to win that day and that was Birmingham, they came in fighting and didn’t back down at any second.
We were outmuscled and outfought throughout the whole match, and I think tactically it was wrong, especially with making our subs too late. We kept trying to play it through the middle, which everyone could see was not working within the first 20 minutes. I feel this was the perfect game to use the wings, i think that would have given Birmingham a run for their money, just like it did in the Lewes, Blackburn and Reading matches, pure fast paced teamwork.
We just couldn’t get a run-in possession, well not until the dying end of the match, by which point it was too late. We were literally second best in every department. We could have been on level terms within 15 minutes of the second half, but the referee, Phoebe Cross, wasn’t having it. Their strikers were way too quick and unfortunately made it harder for our defenders to manage them, they did their best too though.
Looking ahead
We head into the match on Sunday with Saints sitting in 4th place in the table with 27 points, Birmingham 5 th in the table with 26 points, only 1 point behind us! We come of the back of an unfortunate league loss to Palace, where we lost 2-1 & a 3-1 Conti cup loss to United but I’m incredibly proud of their performance in the United game. Hopefully, the frustration of losing against Palace, and with the promotion battle still in sight, pushes us on to get back to winning ways against Birmingham this weekend.
Birmingham had a slow start to the season but once they got their rhythm, have come on leaps and bounds! They’ve won 8, lost 2 and drew 4, so they are pretty good on their form as of late. Birmingham have picked up 4 out of the 8 wins at home too. They have also scored 24 goals but have also conceded 12, which just goes to show they are very susceptible to letting one in, they’ve conceded 8 of the 12 goals at home too.
Sunday is most definitely going to be a tough test and a hard-fought challenge; we know how physical and strong that the Birmingham squad are as we’ve seen the battle between us and them before. We can really be prepared for a bustle between the teams. We just need to play our game because when we play our game; we’re slick, fast, skilful and hard to break down. We need to play just like we did in the second half against Manchester United because we made United look like the championship team and we were the WSL team, no offence to them!
Wishing the girls all the luck on Sunday, let’s get behind them, get cheering and spur them on to bring those almighty 3 points home, to help push further for that promotion!
COME ON YOU SAINTS!!
Match officials
Referee – Aimee Keir
Assistant referee – Leoni Harland
Assistant referee – Hannah Gardner
Fourth Official – Luke Bowles.
Observer – Paul Rejer