Features, Ian Varley
Varley: Everyone is looking forward to it
Published by Gillingham Ladies Media on September 4, 2010
Unbeaten League leaders Portsmouth visit Martyn Grove on Sunday afternoon in a battle of the undefeated starts to the season.
Like the Gills opponents Pompey haven’t lost yet this season and are currently scoring goals for fun, which means it is going to be a tough game for the Gills.
Talking ahead of an important game, Ian said: “The game should be alright they will be a decent outfit so we will try to play as well as we did in last week’s second half and hopefully stop them playing their football.
“They are one of the strongest teams at this level so will be one of the most difficult games we have had, but I think everyone is looking forward to it. We have got to be at our best so hopefully we will get the right result.”
Portsmouth are a bit more of an unknown to the Gills than their previous two opponents Charlton and Millwall and Ian thinks that could be an advantage.
He added: “We don’t know much about them in terms of playing the Charlton’s and Millwall’s where everyone knows each other.
“I think it’s a bit more relaxed as they won’t know people. I am looking forward to it, hopefully we will get the right result but performance is key and hopefully we will be able to take something from the game, hopefully win, and it will put us in good stead for the rest of the season.”
Last weekend the second half performance was more in line with what Ian is looking for his side to play like and he hopes that continues this weekend.
He said: “They are a National Premiership team so we will be looking to emulate that second half performance; we have proven we can play and get teams rattled, like I said Millwall will be better than most in our league so it’s important that we work as we did from the second half.
“If we do things right we will do well in the game, I’m not saying we’re going to win every game because there are times we don’t play and might lose games but we can only try to perform consistently over the 18 games and hopefully we will come out alright.”
Looking ahead to the game Ian conceded that Pompey are one of the more attacking sides in the Division but the Ladies have worked on a number of things in training this week.
He added: “They are near the top so if you can beat them or come above them you are probably looking at getting promoted.
“For me they are probably the team to beat, they had a good pre season, have some good players – Justine Morton who is a really good player so will have to keep our eye on her, they play an attacking 4-4-2 but I think teams that attack us we are better at dealing with that so hopefully we deal with it and hopefully when we do get the ball we will play our own stuff.
“We have had some good tempo sessions, good turnout – everyone is ready to go, no injuries well we know about some injuries, but good sessions and everyone is ready to go for the weekend.”