Ipswich Town Women face Southampton at Eastleigh’s Silverlake Stadium in their first WSL2 away game of the season this afternoon (KO 2pm).
David Wright’s side go into the match having grabbed a late point from last week’s opener against Nottingham Forest at the JobServe Community Stadium in Colchester, courtesy of Megan Hornby’s debut goal.
Wright gave eight of the Blues’ summer signings debuts against Forest, five starting, with the former full-back pleased with the performance and not surprised by the late comeback.
"Probably in terms of learning about their character, I haven’t learned anything new. I knew what the group’s like and the character that they’ve got,” he told TownTV.
"In terms of the structure that we had throughout the game, I think we controlled Forest. They had a couple of moments, but they can have a couple of moments in a 90-minute game. But I think overall we controlled them.
"I think what we spoke about at half-time and after the game was, in terms of us in possession of the ball, carrying a bit more threat and having more confidence in attacking them and passing forward and running forward and carrying a bit more threat throughout the team.
"But overall, to find ourselves in the position that we did coming into 92, 93 minutes, it just came down to character and quality, which we’ve got right throughout the team. We executed in that moment and got a point.”
The Saints, who did the double over the Blues last season, won their opening fixture 3-1 away at Durham last week.
"It’ll be a tough game,” Wright continued. "They’re strong, they’re a big, powerful side. On the front foot, they want to attack really aggressively. It’s going to be a good game.
"We’ve done our homework, we’ve practised all week to combat their strengths and then we’ve looked at areas where we think we can beat them or hurt them, should I say.
"We’ve got another day’s training before we go into that game. We’ll just have another look and another practise and then we should be looking forward to what we know is going to be a tough game, but we should be looking forward to it.
"The girls are in a good place, they’re full of confidence, they’re fit and well, so we should be going there looking forward to it.”