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It’s a quick turnaround for the Lionesses from Sunday’s impressive 3-0 victory against Blackburn, with a mid-week clash against Charlton Athletic. The match was rescheduled after it fell to incremental weather caused a waterlogged pitch back in November.
Lionesses Head Coach Mel Phillips will be hoping for a similar display in Tonight’s fixture although the last time the two sides met, Charlton walked away with the 3 points in a 1-0 win, right back in late 2019.
Speaking ahead of the Charlton game tonight she said “It’s tough, I think they've had a hard string of games with cancellations due to weather or COVID-19."
“I'm sure they're going to be eager as ever to get matches back on again and on their homefield. It is a bit of a Derby game so it will be a tough match we know that. It's a tough, scrappy game that ultimately we’ll have to match that battle physically but then be able to stretch them out and really focus on playing our brand of football."
“I’m glad that it's rescheduled, we’re in a really good position to have a lot of our games stay on the schedule or they’re rescheduled quite quickly so it'll be a good match”.
The Lionesses have managed to give strong performances and get good results against teams lower down in the division, does Phillips think that could continue against Charlton?
Phillips said “When we look back, we just try to figure out where can we grow, what can we learn from and what were the positives of the match because that's all we can take from things that are in the past and apply those to future games."
“We will reflect on things that we've learned against teams that are lower than us in the table but also above us in the table."
“For us, it doesn't matter who we're playing, we have to show up and give a good performance but with it based around effort, competing attitude, good energy, and good communication across the pitch”.
Accessing the mood in the Lionesses camp, Phillips said “The mood in the camp is hungry, it's motivated, eager, determined and there's a lot of positive energy amongst the players. They're just super excited to get back in training this week to be together and work on the little details.
“I think the mood is fantastic I think they're more motivated and hungrier than ever right now”.
You can follow all the build-up to Thursday’s game from 7.30pm with the live match updates via the London City Lionesses Twitter feed.