After a disappointing defeat to promotion rivals Reading at the weekend, Doncaster Rovers Belles could return to the top of the WSL 2 table with a win at Durham.
The Wildcats also need to bounce back from their last outing – a crushing 4-1 defeat at the hands of Aston Villa which saw the Midlands side leapfrog them in league standings.
The last time these two sides met was in the opening match of this season. The game produced a tense first half before the Belles ran rampant after the break with goals from Bethany England, Courtney Sweetman-Kirk and Sue Smith kick-starting their 2015 campaign.
Speaking ahead of the reverse fixture, goalscorer England told the WSL’s official website: “It’s always nice to get a home win, but our opening day victory over Durham was really good as it took us a while to grind them down but we came out on top.
“Hopefully it will be the same again and we can score a few goals, but we’ll not be as fresh-legged with it coming so soon after the Reading game. We had a few lucky escapes despite our good run of form. We had that draw with Everton before our defeat to Reading. We’re lucky Reading dropped points to Yeovil and Oxford, but we need to keep pushing them in order to reach the top flight.”
The opening day defeat to Doncaster was the first of a string of poor results for the Wildcats who have only two wins to their name so far this season – both of which came against the league’s bottom two sides.
The Durham squad contains two former Belles players in the form of Jemma Purfield and Helen Alderson. Purfield, who scored Durham’s only goal against Aston Villa at the weekend, believes her side have progressed since their last encounter with the Belles and warns her former teammates tomorrow’s fixture will be a lot tougher.
“Last time we played them we held them for the majority of the game, and it was just their fitness that came through in the end,” said the striker.
“But we’ve definitely gelled a lot more as a team since the first time we played them, and I don’t see any reason we couldn’t go and get a result now we’ve been playing with each other a lot more.
“We feel like we are getting into the swing of things now and have been picking up a few wins in recent games.
“I feel like we are more organised now, we’re better equipped with what they will throw at us. We know what they are like now so there won’t be any surprises there, and we know where there main threats are and what we can do to stop them.”
Durham’s stand-out addition this season, Amelia Pereira, has scored four goals in 6 games but missed the match at the weekend through injury. The Portuguese winger is thought to have not recovered in time to face Doncaster Rovers.
