Adelaide United Women Head Coach Adrian Stenta is anticipating a motivated Canberra United Women when the two sides meet in Sunday’s Round 8 clash at Marden Sports Complex.
Canberra succumbed to its first defeat of the Westfield W-League 2020/21 season last Monday following a comprehensive 4-0 loss to ladder leader Sydney FC Women.
Stenta expected a reaction from the capital outfit, who sit third in the league standings.
“I think they’ll be looking to respond from last week’s game,” Stenta said.
“I think they’ve got good players all over the park and they’re a team that likes to possess the ball and create a lot of goal scoring opportunities.
“We’re going to have to be at our best to beat them.
“But we’re confident that if we’re able to play as we know we can we’ll be able to get something positive out of the game.”
The Reds are winless from its previous two matches and twice surrendered leads in its 2-2 draw against Western Sydney Wanderers Women last weekend.
It was a frustrating result given the team’s top four aspirations.
However, Stenta is remaining upbeat, confident they can learn from this and improve moving forward.
“We felt like we put ourselves in some good positions in the game to take all three points,” Stenta said, as United lie fifth on 10 points.
“And for a range of different reasons we were unfortunately unable to do that.
“But in saying that there were some positive signs to come out of the game and as always some areas to work on that we’ll continue to look at and try and be better at.”
In this season’s reverse fixture, Adelaide squandered a 2-0 half-time buffer before falling 4-3 in the nation’s capital.
Stenta felt his squad has come a long way since that meeting on the opening day of the campaign.
“Obviously it was a very competitive game in that first round but it was a while ago as well,” he said.
“They’ve held their form very well across the games they’ve played this season and they’ll be a difficult side and present us with some challenges.
“But we feel like it’s a game where we can do some damage as well and we’re really looking forward to the game on Sunday.”
Match details:
Game date: Sunday, 14 February vs Canberra United Women
Westfield W-League 2020/21 – Round 8
Kick-off 5.35pm ACDT
Gates open 4.35pm ACDT
Venue: Marden Sports Complex
Broadcast: FOX Sports
Stream: Kayo Sports, MyFootball Live App
