Ipswich Town Women will be looking to get get over last Sunday’s bitterly disappointing 2-1 home defeat to title rivals Southampton when they take on Chichester & Selsey at the Goldstar Ground, Felixstowe this afternoon (KO 2pm).
The Tractor Girls remain top of the FA Women's National League Southern Premier Division table but only one point ahead of the Saints, who have two games in hand.
Stand-in skipper Bonnie Horwood says the squad now have to focus on their final four games rather than ruminating on Sunday’s defeat.
"We’ve just had our first training session, I think we’ve responded well,” she said. "Obviously it was extremely disappointing for everyone, there’s nothing we can do about it now, we can only go out and win the next four games.”
The ball is now firmly in Southampton’s court but Horwood says the Hampshire side have got to win their remaining fixtures and Town will be aiming to profit from any slips.
"They’ve still got quite a few games back-to-back to play,” she continued, "so we won’t give up and you never know with football, anything can happen.”
She added: "We’ve had a brilliant year, we’ve only lost two games. We’ll go out, we should get the results in these next four and carry it into next season.”
Chichester & Selsey are second bottom of the table and need points quickly if they’re to avoid filling one of the four relegation spots.
Town won the away fixture between the sides 4-0 in September when Maddie Biggs, Natasha Thomas, Zoe Barratt and Lucy O’Brien scored the goals.
"Every game is a test now,” Horwood said. "We’ll dust ourselves off and put in a really strong performance on Sunday.”"