Women: Blackburn Rovers Preview - Jan 23

The Golden Girls are back in action this weekend, with Blackburn Rovers Ladies the visitors to Kings Langley.

Watford will be going into the fixture on the back of an impressive performance on Merseyside and will now be looking to start moving up the table.

It’s an intriguing and important FA Women’s Championship clash on Sunday (January 23 – 3pm KO), with the two teams 10th and 11th in the table respectively.

Fan Guide

We’ve put together a guide for the upcoming match with all the information you’ll need ahead of your trip to Kings Langley.

We look forward to welcoming you to The Orbital Fasteners Stadium.

Views from the Interim Head Coach

With an encouraging display away at the league leaders last weekend, there’s a real eagerness amongst the group ahead of this Sunday’s match against Blackburn Rovers Ladies.

“Since I’ve been Interim Head Coach, the mood has been good,” Gifton Noel-Williams told watfordfc.com. “It’s a high-performance environment – training has been sharp and lively, and the girls have been good characters.

“Nothing has really changed on that, obviously you see a few people a bit more confident (after Liverpool), but it’s been a good environment from the start.

“When you work hard on the training ground and see the things you’re doing are working, you know as a player you want to play. You look at a few weeks before against London City with the game being called off, I think that in itself got the players hungry, got them wanting to be out there on the pitch.

“Going to Liverpool and performing the way we did and almost getting something, it was a loss, but it was a decent result. I think it must give everyone confidence and make everyone want to get back on that pitch and play again this weekend.”

It’ll be Noel-Williams’ first home match in interim charge on Sunday. He’s looking forward to being at the Orbital Fasteners Stadium and knows it’ll be a competitive encounter.

“It’s always nice to have a home game,” he explained. “It’s going to be exciting and I’m really looking forward to it.

“I believe that a home fixture of any sorts is always good, hopefully we’ll have some fans come and watch the game and make a bit of an atmosphere.

“Blackburn are a well organised, well drilled team. They have some really good players that can hurt you if you give them time. I’m expecting a good battle, two sets of players to go out there and leave everything on the table and for it to be competitive and fast game.”

With the two teams next to each other in the table, it’s going to be an important match-up. Noel-Williams knows what he wants to see from his squad.

“The bare minimum I expect from the players is: hard work, a good positive attitude, to support your teammates, and to outwork the other team,” he revealed. “Those are some of the things that I expect every single game.

“The result will take care of itself, whether the luck is on our side or not on our side, sometimes you can do nothing about the result.

“What’s important is the performance and I believe if the girls go out and put in a performance, whatever the result is, we can leave with our heads held high.”

Opposition

When the two teams met earlier in the campaign, it was for the first time in just shy of 11 years. A lot has happened to Blackburn Rovers since that encounter in November 2010.

The season prior to that they were in the top tier of women’s football. Rovers actually finished seventh that season, although due to the introduction of the FA WSL in 2011, they would soon find themselves playing at a lower level.

An on-the-field relegation also followed, which meant that a couple of years later they were playing in the third tier, which is where they would find themselves for a little short of a decade.

After finishing third numerous times, the team convincingly won the league title in 2016/17, without losing a single match. It wouldn’t be enough to earn a place in what was then WSL 2 though, with Tottenham Hotspur defeating them in the promotion play-off.

Blackburn went and finished top, again. They would lose to Charlton in the promotion match-up and despite the re-structuring of the women’s game, weren’t awarded a place in the newly re-branded Championship via that route either.

Which meant there was only one thing they could do – win the Northern Division for a third consecutive year. They absolutely smashed it in 2018/19, winning 23 of 24 games. This time Rovers actually defeated their Southern Division counterparts (Coventry United), although two promotion spots were on offer anyway.

They’re now in their third season in the FA Women’s Championship, having finished in seventh and ninth place respectively in the two previous campaigns.

Tenth is where they lie right now in 2021/22, with the team having a 3-1-9 record after 13 games. They’ve definitely been better at home, with nine of those 10 points coming at Bamber Bridge. That said, Blackburn have recently recorded two away wins in cup competitions and will now be looking to pick up their first in the league this afternoon.

While they have a young squad, there’s a number of players who’ve been with them for several years, with Chelsey Jukes, Natasha Fenton, Saffron Jordan and Kayleigh McDonald all playing a big part in their previous successes.

Jordan has a remarkable record in front of goal with Rovers and has netted three times this season. It’s a more recent addition that currently leads the scoring charts though; Ellie Leek has found the back of the net on four occasions, with three of them game winners.