23rd November 2018
Cheltenham Town Ladies host Southampton Women on Sunday afternoon in a top-of-the-table clash at the DN Fire Stadium.
The hosts occupy third position in Division One South West, sitting five points adrift of Southampton, who are in joint top of the division, but behind Keynsham Town on goal difference.
Both teams progressed in the County Cup last weekend, with Town winning 4-0 at Down End Flyers and Southampton thrashing Gosport Borough LFC 7-0 away from home.
Last Time Out:
The last time these two teams met was actually the final day of the 2017/18 season, with Southampton winning 3-1 in Cheltenham in late May.
A Laura Vokes double and a strike from Sophie Hall cancelled out Annabel Davies’ second-half goal for Town.
This season, though, has seen an inspired Cheltenham Town side – a very different prospect from last season.
————————————————————————————————————————–
The Opposition:
Sunday will see Southampton’s third away game of the season, with their other two being comfortable wins for them.
A 3-0 win at Brislington was followed by a 5-0 thrashing at Larkhall a few weeks after.
Simon Parker’s team are one of two teams, along with fellow table-toppers Keynsham, to boast an unbeaten record so far this season.
The Managers:
After winning so comfortably last time out at Down End, Cheltenham manager Alex Cheal has stated his belief that his girls can make turn the switch fully on for this weekend’s test.
“The girls approach has been excellent this season and they have responded to the challenges in front of them,” Cheal explained.
“We trained in the right manner this week and set about a game plan to try and get a positive result.
We know that Sunday is a tough test but we believe we can compete with these sides, so I expect our girls to play without fear and raise their game.”
Southampton manager Simon Parker was very complimentary of Cheltenham and how much they have improved this season.
But Parker has insisted his side will travel up to Cheltenham and aim to play the way that they always do.
“Cheltenham have been scoring a lot of goals this season and we are aware of the attacking threat they pose, we are aiming to play the way we always try to,” the Southampton manager insisted.
“We have not worked on a specific plan to negate Cheltenham’s attack. We will aim to play as we always do, we have worked hard to follow a footballing ideology/philosophy and we as a club believe in it.”
