Bedford: Stick To Our Principles
Despite defeats in both of their opening Barclays Women’s Super League games of the new campaign, there is a confidence within the camp that it will only take one moment of magic to turn fortunes in the Foxes’ favour, with performances the manager believes were worthy of more.
This midweek encounter with the Toffees at Walton Hall Park provides the next opportunity to put those first WSL points on the board and, ahead of travelling to Merseyside, Bedford sat down at Belvoir Drive to answer questions from the media during her pre-match press conference…
Preparing for Everton
“Same as every other game, we take each opponent as it comes,” the former England Under-19s head coach began. “We’ve got a clear game plan on how we think we’re best to set up. It’s a similar formation to what we faced against Spurs a few weeks ago.
“We’ve had a reasonable experience of that. We played a few teams in pre-season who played that formation. We’ve got our core, key principles that we’ve built across pre-season. We stick to those and we go out and execute them again on Thursday.
“At some point a little bit of luck has got to land on our side. Hopefully that’s this Thursday night and then from that point you see a platform for these players to grow and get even better.”
Reflections on Villa
The 35-year-old said: “Anybody who watched the game on Sunday knows that the result was not necessarily a reflection of how well the players performed across the 90 minutes.
“For us, it’s just about reflecting on those key moments that we need to be better at to try and take something from the game. I’ve been back through it and there’s just too many chances to not put one in the back of the net next time that happens.
“It’s always disappointing not to have anything to show for the performances. At times last season, the gap between where we were performing and the team we were playing against was performing was massive. That flipped completely in the last two games. It shows how close we are. We take confidence from that.”
Finding that first goal
“Hopefully someone can start putting the ball in the back of the net,” Bedford stated. “It’s as simple as that. We’re doing all the right things. The players now just need to take that composure now to slot it home.
“If you watch back the chances created from the weekend, our players will be disappointed with the fact that they didn’t. It’s a new game on Thursday night and I’ve been involved in many games where everything goes your way and you put four or five in the back of the net and some where nothing seems to go our way.
“Hopefully we’re due a good one this week. It’s motivating them. What you want to be doing is creating chances and if that continued for a long time, I’m sure it would have a psychological impact on our forwards.
“But right now, we’ve just finished a training session and we’ve had another focus on our finishing within that and the ball has been flying into the back of the net left right and centre. All it takes is one of those to go in.”
Travelling away for the first time
Commenting on the fans, Bedford added: “They’ll definitely play a massive part. It was great to hear them at the away games last year. They were a big presence, even if it wasn’t at King Power Stadium. We’re hopeful that we have a similar level of support for this game.
“Any time in the game when you can hear that fan level behind you, it helps. At the same time, we’re away and we know we’re going to have less fans than Sunday, but we know exactly what needs to be achieved on Thursday night.
“I think there’s an element of a lack of pressure that comes with a game like that when you’re traveling away from home and you can just go and enjoy the performance, playing on a different pitch, so we’re looking forward to it.
“You look at every opponent you’re up against and you make changes based on that. The changes won’t be because we’re away from home. If we make changes, it will be because we think that’s going to win us the game.
“You work out which style of play is going to cause that opponent a problem on a given day. We played at Walton Hall Park last March and the wind played a massive factor in the game for large parts. That was also an evening kick-off. There are considerations like that.”