Ipswich Town Women visit Bristol City at Ashton Gate this afternoon looking to bounce back from last week’s disappointing 4-1 home defeat to Newcastle United (KO 2pm, live on YouTube.
The Blues remain bottom of WSL2 with manager Joe Sheehan admitting last week’s loss to the Magpies was a frustration.
"Disappointed to get beat,” he told TownTV. "As always, we try and get a balance of things we can be positive about but also things that we absolutely have to improve on.
"It’s just figuring out how and why, what moments in the game, what periods, what’s contributing to us not being as good as we would like ourselves to be.
"And trying to put in some really good preparation and planning and work that can help us keep improving step-by-step on the things that we absolutely need to improve on.”
Claiming their second win of the season this afternoon won’t be an easy matter against a Robins team which is currently third in the table having won 4-2 at Sunderland last weekend.
"A really good, well-coached team,” Sheehan continued. "I know [head coach] Charlotte [Healy] really well and she’s had a really good career to date at Man United [where she coached in various roles for six years] and has got her first opportunity at Bristol City to lead a group, and they’ll be hoping to have a successful season.
"A team that has got some good players, as we know that most teams in this division have some really good players to choose from. But a team we’re super-excited to be facing.
"I think we’re super-excited to try and eradicate the things we’ve been not as good at, so we’re excited to try and improve and draw on the positives, but we’re also looking forward to, hopefully, see our team progress and be better at the things that we’ve not been particularly pleased with.
"A good team awaits us but I think every game we face in this division we’re going into with a lot of optimism, a lot of hope and we’re absolutely preparing as best we can to try and put ourselves in a position where we can start the game really bright and put in a solid performance.”
Regarding availability, he added: "Pretty good. Unfortunate to be without Lucy O’Brien last week, so we’ll have to work out if she’s going to be OK.
"I think there are one or two others who have picked up some strains in key areas for us, so they’ll need to be monitored.
"But we have got a lot of players available, so if those players aren’t available we’ve got some suitable alternatives ready to attack the game.”