The Presser: Ward previews Leicester City test

Carla Ward’s attention turned to Aston Villa’s Barclays WSL encounter against Leicester City at her pre-match press conference on Thursday.

Off the back of a 3-1 defeat against Arsenal on Sunday, the manager spoke about the prospect of facing the Foxes at Poundland Bescot Stadium.

Here’s what she had to say…

On the visit of Leicester…

“It’s one we want to go and get maximum points from, of course. It won’t be easy. They’ve lost a few [games] but I know Jen [Foster] well. She was one of my coaches when I was at [Birmingham City]. She’ll have them organized, we expect it to be a tough afternoon because they’ve had a fairly good season so far.”

On our home form…

“It’s one of those. It’s our last game at the Bescot this season and we want to try and finish on a high. We know our away form is better. Why is that? I couldn’t tell you.”

On the number of shot attempts on Sunday…

“If we talk about the week before [Arsenal], we created a lot. If we talk about this season, we’ve created an awful lot. We’ve maybe not had the best xG but we’ve created an awful lot. Let’s talk about the opponent, that being Arsenal off the back of a defeat to Chelsea. We knew that they were going to come at us. They were hurting at being 1-0 down and we knew they were going to throw the kitchen sink at us. I think, going the other way, is something we spoke about at the start of the week. Hopefully the way we line-up will reflect how we want to rectify that.”

On Olivia McLoughlin…

“I said once [the loan deal] was confirmed that she wasn’t coming back unless she brought me a medal! We’ve spoken a fair bit and I said to her before the game not to forget the medal. She sent me a nice message afterwards saying she’ll be bringing it back soon. It’s good experiences for her. It’s only for a short period but to experience a run-in for a title at that age, to be in cup finals… some of the senior players haven’t experienced those moments so it’s a really valuable moment for Liv.”