Bristol City head coach Smith hoping for another good performance against Liverpool | OneFootball

Bristol City head coach Lauren Smith is hoping that her side rise to the challenge of Liverpool again when the two teams meet at Ashton Gate this weekend.

The Robins have already faced The Reds twice this season. Bristol City recorded a credible 1-1 draw at Prenton Park in the reverse fixture before being defeated 1-0 at Ashton Gate in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup.

Bristol City have proved that they can compete with Liverpool and head coach Smith wants her side to replicate their level of performance when the two teams meet this weekend.

“They’ve got some really good players and they’re clinical at what they do,” Smith said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “It’s a different style of play to the rest of the league, they’re direct with aggressive runners.

“They’ve done well and they’re hard to defend against when they’re having a good day but we’ve had really tight games against them. Ultimately, we have raised our game against them.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It’ll be good to see whether we can match the performances of the FA Cup and the game away where we felt that we finished on top.”

It has been a difficult season for Bristol City. The club are rooted to the bottom of the Barclays Women’s Super League table and could be relegated if results don’t go their way this weekend. Smith says that the team are not thinking about relegation, all of their focus is on performing well against Liverpool.

She said “We’ve always focused on the team that we are coming up against and the performance. We’ve done that for everything and we won’t be changing that. The players know the reality of the situation because it’s what we live. We’ve been in a relegation battle all season and that gets tighter towards the end.

“It’s out of our hands if we don’t get any points on Saturday and we will be waiting to see what that looks like as the weekend rolls through. Ultimately, we will do what we can and we are going to try and win the game and make sure that it gets shifted down the road a little bit.”

Bristol City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Liverpool kicks-off at 12.30pm on Saturday afternoon. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.