Women’s Nation League game at 2pm
- Huddersfield Town Women in action on Sunday 3 October 2021
- Women hosting Stoke City at the Stafflex Arena
- Supporters able to attend
Huddersfield Town Women will be looking for their first league home win of the season on Sunday 3 October 2021 as they welcome Stoke City to the Stafflex Arena.
Following on from last week’s battling 3-2 loss to table-toppers Wolverhampton Wanderers, the Terriers return to action against ninth placed Stoke City.
The Potters have only secured one win this season when they thrashed Loughborough Lightning 5-1 last month. Since then, they have only picked up one further point - this coming last week in a 1-1 draw against Brighouse Town.
However, Stoke do have firepower as they have scored in all but one match this season, coming close to winning points in their opening fixtures that ended with a 3-2 scoreline (against Fylde and Derby County).
Manager Steve Appleton believes Town should be cautious.
“I expect Stoke to be really up for this game, they’re a big club who should be fighting for promotion this season."
"They’ve got an experienced group of coaches and a very knowledgeable director of football who has overseen an overhaul of the squad, swapping the deadwood for fresher, upcoming talent, so they’ll be a force in our division.”
Meanwhile the Terriers will be looking to bounce back from two consecutive league losses. Last week Huddersfield showed a lot of improvement across the board however failed to find the vital equaliser in the final moments.
Appleton took many positives from the match.
“We definitely matched a top side and caused them problems during the game and the result could’ve gone either way really.”
Town currently sit in seventh place after securing eight points with six games played. Their run this season started with a goalless draw to Forest before picking up away wins against Loughborough Lightning and Middlesbrough. The other draw came at home against Brighouse Town before losses to Burnley and Wolves.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Roisin Kivel is currently the top scorer for Stoke with five goals in six appearances. She has impressed opposition teams too with her securing three player of the match awards so far.
Meanwhile, for the Terriers, Brittany Sanderson just won Player of the Month as voted for by the players. Additionally, the attacking midfielder secured the Goal of the Month title as voted for by the fans. Her strike from 20 yards against Wolves being her fifth (and latest) goal this season.
Finally, this will be Steve Appleton’s first game against his former club. Appleton coached the Stoke team several years ago and faced Huddersfield many times throughout the season.
However, Steve says this doesn’t matter once the game starts.
“I’ll treat the game like any other, Stoke and I have moved on, there’s one or two people who I’m looking forward to seeing on Sunday, but there won’t be any sentiment from either party”.
Once again Huddersfield fans will be able to watch Huddersfield Town Women in action this Sunday at the Stafflex Arena, Storthes Hall.
Live match updates will also be available on Twitter from 2pm on Sunday via @HTAFCWomen.
