By Connor Armstrong
Alex Scott has called for focus from Arsenal Ladies ahead of Sunday’s game against Liverpool Ladies.
The Gunners sit three points behind league leaders Manchester City with just five games of the Women’s Super League season left to play.
Scott is keen to keep the pressure on the top two, and has called for the side to ensure they are primed and ready to take advantage of any slip up from their title rivals.
“At Arsenal, it’s about never giving up. As the league’s already shown in previous years, anything can still happen,” she told Arsenal.com.
“It’s all in Manchester City’s hands because they're top of the table, but we want to be there in case they slip up. So for us, it’s all about winning games. We’re yet to play City and they are still to play Chelsea, so there still could be slip-ups along the way.”
"At Arsenal, it’s about never giving up. As the league’s already shown in previous years, anything can still happen"
Alex Scott
Pedro Martinez Losa’s side are currently on a nine-match unbeaten run, which has seen them secure three clean sheets in their last five outings while scoring 16 goals in the last six games.
“It’s great that we’re keeping clean sheets but we also need to keep scoring as many goals as we can and be ruthless,” Scott said.
“When you look back throughout the season and last season you have to ask: have we been clinical enough in front of goal? We should be putting teams to bed, rather than hanging on and fighting at the end of games sometimes when a scoreline is 2-1.
“Liverpool play some really good football with their new manager,” she added. “They’ve got ex-Arsenal players like most teams in the league, but players like Siobhan Chamberlain will feel like she never really got a chance here so she’ll want to prove a point.
“Caroline Weir was a young talent at Arsenal and wanted to grab that opportunity sooner somewhere else. They’re both going to be coming into the game wanting to prove to Pedro that they should’ve been in our team.”
After following up a landmark 2-1 win on the road at Chelsea with a 4-0 victory against Sunderland last weekend, Scott believes Losa’s side has had a shift in mentality that will serve them well during the run-in.
“Time has proven that our mentality has changed. At the start of the season or even last season, if we’d gone a goal down to Chelsea I think we would have crumbled and Chelsea would have gone on to win the game,” she said.
“I didn't see any panic from anyone and straight away the belief was ‘okay, we’ve got however many minutes - let’s turn this game around’ and that’s what you’re seeing in games.
“We’ve got the character and mentality to step up when things aren't going our ways and even when we’re not playing our best football, we’re grinding out results.”
For live updates from Sunday’s match against Liverpool, follow @ArsenalLadies on Twitter and follow the hashtag #ALFC.
The match will also be televised by BT Sport, with coverage starting from 14:30.
Van Veenendaal
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