This Sunday, Saints head away to Eppleton Colliery Welfare ground for their match against Sunderland. It’s scary to say it, but this game marks the third last away game of the season, and everything is still looking very close at the top! After the performance and win against Birmingham in the league before international break, let’s hope we see anexciting display from the get-go! Let’s all get behind the girls, cheer them on to another hopeful victory! If you can’t make it to the match, then your only source of keeping up to date is the Saints social medias! @saintsfcwomen on X (Twitter)
Last time out
Last time out was in the FA Cup where we best Sunderland 2-0 thanks to some great goals by Wilko! This match could be described as a match of two halves, that being that the first half wasn’t a great half, but it wasn’t bad in my opinion. By that, I mean we were struggling to get out of our own half and were being faced by a Sunderland team that were showing some pure dominance and aggression. Though, we did have a couple of very good chances, none that really amounted to anything, we just needed to give a bit more welly in the final third and pass the ball quicker. We just weren’t seeing the ball very much at all and also struggled to string passes together at times.
I fully blame the pitch as well as the sun beaming down in our eyes for the first half, even with the sun shining in their eyes though, we stood our ground and held them off to ensure they were not going to score, which thankfully they didn’t! Being at a smaller ground it was really nice to be able to hear the girls communicating with each other.
The second half we come out a whole load stronger, we were playing the ball a whole load better and making a lot more runs and connection passes work. I think in this half the girls showed a lot more vision than they did in the first half,
we were creating chances and some beautiful crosses into the box, which was amazing to see! Then come the two goals by none other than Wilko, one of them being goal of the season in my opinion.
Looking Ahead We head into the match on Sunday with Saints sitting in 3rd place in the table with 30 points, Sunderland top of the table with 31 points, just 1 point ahead of us. We come of the back of a great 2-1 win against Birmingham in their home turf. After the international break, let’s hope we carry the momentum from the last win and it pushes us on to fight for another 3 points on Sunday, get another good few goals, and remain heavily in the promotion battle. It’s very tight at the top!
Sunderland had a brilliant start to the season and have really kept their rhythm going since! They’ve won 9, lost 3 and drew 4, so they are pretty good on their form. Sunderland have picked up 4 out of the 9 wins at home too. They have also scored 22 goals but have also conceded 13, which just goes to show they are very susceptible to letting one in, they’ve conceded 10 of the 13 goals at home too!
Sunday is most definitely going to be a challenge; we’ve seen how testing and good Sunderland can be with their football. They show pure aggression and dominance at times and their physicality also helps them a lot. Fun fact though, we love to win on their home turf, same again this Sunday? It in my opinion is going to be a very exciting match and I feel like we will be on edge and have a nervy 90 minutes – will Wilko carry on the tradition of scoring at Eppleton Colliery Welfare ground?! We can hope so!
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 – Nicoletta Bria
Assistant referee – Emma Taylor
Assistant referee – Folu Adadelusi
Fourth Official – Ruby Sykes
The Ground
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