Brighton & Hove Albion women’s first-team captain Dani Buet is looking for an improved performance from the squad in the FA Women’s Super League when Albion take on Chelsea this afternoon, kick-off 2.30pm.
Whilst Albion enjoyed success in the FA Continental Tyres League Cup in midweek, the Seagulls fell to defeat in their last league outing against West Ham United and Buet wants a higher-quality performance from the team.
She said, “Most importantly for us, we need to bounce back from the defeat at the weekend. Our levels weren’t good enough and we expect more from each other, so hopefully we can do that.”
“We have really analysed our past performances this season. We know where our undoings have come from and we know that we need to become harder to beat against teams.
“Sometimes we give away soft goals, and against Chelsea that is the last thing we want to do. We can take a lot of confidence from the fact we have played them twice this year, and whilst they dominated possession, I wouldn’t say they dominated the games.
“It is about a year since we played them last season, and the difference in just one year having played against them twice, we created more chances than we did in other games, so from that we can take a lot of confidence.”
The 30-year-old then analysed the Chelsea squad’s strengths but was hopeful of creating an upset at the Broadfield Stadium.
“Their movement is probably their biggest strength and they're a possession-based team with a lot of attacking flair. They have very good, world-class players playing for them up front.
“We’re going to need to be diligent, we’re going to need to work hard and tactically we’re going to need to know our game plan inside out.
“We know we’re going to be the underdogs going into this game, as we are for most matches, but sometimes the underdogs can come up with surprises.
“Chelsea are probably not at their best but they're still a very good team. In this league I feel like any of the teams are up for grabs and if we make ourselves hard to beat then I don’t doubt that we could potentially get something from the game.”