Ladies On The Brink

A win at Doncaster tonight will put Everton even closer to the league title.

A win at Doncaster Rovers Belles tonight will put Everton Ladies on the brink of the league title.

Victory will give the Toffees a three-point advantage going into to Sunday’s title decider with nearest rivals Arsenal.

The scenario is an exciting prospect for the Blues, who last claimed the league silverware in 1998. 

Essentially, with a win tonight, avoiding against the Gunners in Sunday’s showdown will secure the elusive league title.

Speaking to evertonfc.com before departing for tonight’s game, manager Mo Marley was anticipating a different challenge now that the Blues carry the ‘favourites’ tag into the final weekend.

“We expect, like all our previous games since we knew we were still in the title race, all our games to be very difficult,” Marley told evertonfc.com. 

“It's been really tough. We've had to show a lot of resilience. Teams are trying to get a point off us, so they are making games quite tight and hard for us to break down.

“Doncaster will be a different kettle of fish all together. They will come out attacking and wanting to beat us, and they've got one or two dangerous players who are actually capable of causing us problems.

The game which ultimately put the Toffees in pole position for the league championship was on 29 March – a famous 3-0 victory over Arsenal, which brought the Gunners’ 108-game unbeaten run to a halt.

And since then, the Blues’ run-in has been testing, as their 3-0 victory against Nottingham Forest last weekend proved.

It took until the second period for the Blues to break down the East Midlands outfit - a situation which Marley has reported frequently in recent contests now that Everton are seen as the team to beat. 

“As we took points off Arsenal, everybody now wants to take points off Everton,” she explained. “The credit is then transferred to that team who broke their unbeaten record.

“We've got to be able to defend well tonight, which has been one of our personal objectives anyway - to make sure we keep a clean sheet - and the league table shows that.

“We want to win, and tonight will be no different. It will be difficult, as Arsenal found that out when they drew 0-0 with them.”

Importantly, it is tonight’s opponents’ stalemate with the Gunners four weeks ago which provided the interesting twist in title fortunes.

However, Everton were not to escape similar damage to their own 100 per cent record, having recorded the same score line against Leeds Carnegie the week after their Arsenal triumph.    

Yet it was Arsenal, who seemingly buckled under the impact of defeat to the Toffees, who had to settle for a point at Doncaster - making tonight’s task all the more significant.

“Nobody would have suggested that we would be in this position”, Marley continued. “We're normally out of the league by Christmas because we've already played Arsenal and lost to them.

“That's the significant turning point for us - the fact that we've beaten Arsenal away.

“The difference this year is, they've dropped points to Doncaster Belles and dropped points where nobody expected them to - that's the position that we're normally in.

“The pressure is on the Doncaster fixture. Because now we've beaten Arsenal, everybody expects us to win.

“We've had one great result from one great game, that's it. We haven't done anything else yet.”

Everton Ladies' title-deciding clash with Arsenal will take place at the Halton Stadium in Widnes on Sunday 10 May, kick-off 2pm. Tickets are priced at £3 for Adults and £1 for Juniors and will be available on the gate.