Women's Team

Siobhan Hodgetts-Still | We want to finish on a high

Siobhan Hodgetts-Still.

Albion Women head coach Siobhan Hodgetts-Still believes her side can be “hard to beat” in their final game of the season against Newcastle United on Sunday.

The Baggies welcome the FA WNL Northern Premier Division champions to the Valley Stadium with hopes of ending their season on a high.

Head coach Hodgetts-Still is hopeful they can improve on their narrow 1-0 defeat to the Toon earlier in the season.

She said: “They’ve won the league now so we know what we’re going to face. We’ve played them once so they do have the ball for large parts of the game.

“They have some great in-possession players and quality in that too. We need to make sure we’re on it in terms of our out-of-possession, making sure we’re hard to beat and that we compete.

“We need to try and be hard to break down and we know the qualities that they have. We’ve come a long way with the ball too, last time we didn’t create as many chances as we’d have liked.

“We didn’t really have as much of the ball as we’d have wanted. We’ve done a lot of work on that and it’ll be good to see those moments and if we can create chances against them.

“We’ve seen their results over the last few games where teams have picked up points against them so we’re hopeful that we can do that. I want us to get as many points as possible no matter what.”

Albion Women in action against Newcastle earlier this season.

The Baggies improved their sharpness ahead of their final league encounter with a 3-1 friendly win over Midlands rivals Sporting Khalsa on Sunday, a performance the head coach was pleased with.

She said: “Overall it was a great game. First half, we dominated and scored two great goals whilst creating chances.

“Credit to Sporting Khalsa in the second half they came at us a little bit more, particularly over the first 20/25 minutes, they created quite a few chances. There was a bit of tiredness from them in the last few minutes so we were able to dominate and scored to seal the win.

“It was a good test for us, we know the quality they have. We know where they are in their league which they are for a reason.

“It was an opportunity to get some minutes and get some players back from injury too. Overall I was very happy with the performance and there are definitely some things that we can work on.

“Getting minutes is what this is all about. We’ve had a couple of players who have come back from injury this week, Steph [Weston] has been out for a while so it’s good she got some minutes.

“We need these types of games to give players some opportunities to create those relationships on the pitch. We could see that today in parts, Phoebe [Warner] was excellent both out wide and in the 10, she created two goals for us.”