BURTON Albion joint-manager Tommy Booth said he’s not scared of any team in the FA Women'sNational League Division One Midlands ahead of their trip to Bedworth United.
The Brewers come into the game looking for back-to-back wins for the first time this season, with Booth insisting that his side will challenge anyone in the league if they play to their strengths.
“We’ve said in the previous months if we can focus on what we can control, and I feel like if we play to our strengths, it doesn’t really matter about a lot of the opposition,” said Booth.
“You’ve got a couple of teams in the league where you’re always going to be up against a battle, but I think at least half of the division, if we’re at our best we can beat them but there’s been occasions when we’ve had five to ten minutes off in a game and conceded a couple of sloppy goals.
“Hopefully we can just put together a good performance from start to finish,” added the manager.
“I’m not scared about anyone in the division if we do that.”
This Sunday’s game will be the Brewers first in 25 days, with the previous weekend’s fixture against Wem Town postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
Booth was disappointed that last week’s game got postponed, seeing it as an opportunity to build on their stoppage-time victory against Holwell Sports.
“I think it’s more frustrating when it’s of the day [of the game]. If you’re aware you can bring one in and we’ve tried in the past to get friendlies involved, but in the morning of the fixture, it’s really a bit of a kicker."
“One week missing a game isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I think we’ve gone over three weeks now without actually playing so that’s really frustrating.”
He added: “It was frustrating that we didn’t have a game straight after the Holwell [Sports] one because you can take on the winning momentum in the fact you’ve just won a game."
“It lifts everyone a little bit, so it was a bit frustrating we didn’t have a game after that.”
The two teams will meet for the third time this season on Sunday afternoon. After being knocked out the Women's National League Cup by the Burton in September, the Greenbacks got their revenge a month later, winning 4-1 in the league.
Booth highlighted Bedworth’s top-scorer Kirsty Farnsworth as their main threat, with the striker scoring twice against the Brewers already this season but was also quick to praise the rest of the team.
“I think they're much improved,” insisted Booth.
“The side that we played against in the cup seemed to be a different one to the one that we played in the league, I don’t know if that’s because they got people back from injury or they signed new players.”
“They’ve got an obvious threat upfront in Kirsty Farnsworth. The cup game was a bit ‘if you keep her
quiet you keep the team quiet."
“I think the league game was a little bit different to that, so it’s a bit of an unknown.”
Speaking positively about his squad before the game."
“There’s confidence, I think the way that we’ve trained has brought a lot of confidence with it."