‘It’s exciting to have them back’ – London City Lionesses boss Phillips previews Coventry United | OneFootball

London City Lionesses head coach Melissa Phillips says that she is pleased that her side have the opportunity to face Coventry United this weekend after the Warwickshire club were recently rescued from liquidation in the final hour.

The pair meet at the Butts Park Arena on Sunday in what is Coventry United’s first home game since coming back from the brink.

The harsh reality is that if local businessman Lewis Taylor had not have agreed to save Coventry United, their record in this season’s FA Women’s Championship would have been removed and the fans would not be having the opportunity to cheer on their team this weekend. When speaking ahead of the game, London City Lionesses boss Phillips said that she is delighted to see Coventry United stay alive.

“First of all, it is fantastic to see that an investor has come in to save the club,” Phillips said. “It was a hard day for any women’s footballer to see what happened at Coventry just before Christmas. We are excited to have them back in the league, they’re quality opposition.

“Their backs are up against the wall a little bit so they are going to have to fight and grind and that’s how they played against us anyway (in the reverse fixture). If you have a look at their results early on in the season, they had a lot of close 1-0 games and they were maybe a bit unlucky not to nip a few more results.

“They are a growing club, we experienced that a few years ago when London City were a new club and also being a model to go from part-time to full-time. There are going to be teething pains and growing problems with that and I’m sure that they’ve experienced that along the way but it is just about moving forward and it is nice to see that Coventry can do that. They will be tough opposition when we face them on Sunday.”

While London City Lionesses are flying high in second position in the FA Women’s Championship table, Phillips went on to say that the team are not looking at rankings or past results.

She said “We hardly talk about the table, it is such a little focus point of our week. Of course, we want to go out and get three points on Sunday but all of our conversations are about focus and preparation – where we need to be a little bit better, where we exploit and how we best prepare ourselves for Sunday. Results are such a little part of the preparation throughout the week.”

London City Lionesses’ FA Women’s Championship fixture at Coventry United kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday.