Ipswich Town Women host the MK Dons for the first of back-to-back clashes against the Buckinghamshire side at the Martello Stadium this afternoon (KO 2pm).
The Blues face the bottom-of-the-table Dons in the FAWNL Southern Premier Division this afternoon, looking to gain ground on leaders Hashtag United and Oxford in second. Next Sunday the teams meet at the same venue in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup.
Town are five points behind the Essex side and two behind the U’s but with two games in hand on both of them.
Hashtag are at Exeter, who are fourth, this afternoon with Oxford hosting fifth-placed Billericay.
Manager Joe Sheehan is looking for a better display than in last week’s 1-0 home FAWNL Cup defeat to Hashtag.
"My initial thoughts are trying to make an improvement on last Sunday’s game,” he said. "There’s a little bit of MK Dons we’ve been able to watch, but it’s more focusing on us on this occasion because of last week’s game and things we want to improve on.
"That’s been our process this week, making sure we’re really thorough with our preparation, making sure we’re better than we were last week and hopefully put in a better performance.
"A little bit more intensity in our play, hopefully a lot tidier with the ball and a lot better at working our way through the pitch to create openings for our attacking players because we weren’t good enough with that last Sunday.
"It will be about trying implement that, improving that and trying to create more chances for our attacking players to score and always tidying up defensively and making sure without the ball that we’re going to be really solid and don’t allow too many chances on our goal.”
Elsewhere, defender Megan Wearing won her ninth Scotland U19s cap as her side were beaten 1-0 by Romania at the Slovenia Nations Cup yesterday afternoon.
This evening, striker Issy Fisher, 17, could add to her England U17s caps when the Young Lionesses take on Japan in the quarter-finals of the U17 Women's World Cup in the Dominican Republic.