Celtic FC Women will look to build on their fantastic start to the SWPL campaign when they head to Edinburgh to take on Hearts this weekend. The match will be played at the Oriam National Performance Centre on Sunday with a 2pm Kick off.
It has been a wonderful opening few weeks as the Celts opened up the league campaign with a brilliant 2-1 win over Glasgow City at K-Park in East Kilbride. No mean feat when you consider their opponents had won 13 consecutive league titles as well as last season’s Scottish Cup.
Celtic 2 Glasgow City 1 – Kelly Clark’s dramatic late winner against 13-in-a-row SWPL Champions…
Set fire to the rain 🔥 pic.twitter.com/6GieopTUQl
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) February 22, 2020
With this Celtic team only turning professional this season it would have been assumed a bit of time to knit together new players and new philosophies from recent managerial appointment Fran Alonso into a coherent unit, however the amazing 2-1 win over City through a fine Kelly Clark finish in injury time has since been followed up with League Cup progression as the early indications are this side is hitting the ground running.
🏆 Lìog @SWPL
💥TADHAL! Ewens le slaic àlainn!
💥GOAL! Great strike from Ewens!@CelticFCWomen 1⃣@GlasgowCityFC 1⃣#BBCALBA pic.twitter.com/lO7JPj44WT— BBC ALBA (@bbcalba) February 21, 2020
A 4-1 win over Spartans at Ainslie Park in their last encounter prior to the international break saw the Celts top Group A and qualify for the Quarter Finals. A first goal in Celtic colours for new American signing Summer Green and further strikes from the brilliant Sarah Ewens, Kathleen McGovern and Josephine Giard saw the Ghirls emerge with a comfortable win in what was a must win tie.
Fran Alonso seemed pleased with the performance but a little less happy with losing a player to injury in circumstances you wouldn’t often come across in professional football.
📰 | @Bartle_5: "When anyone asks, I always say it makes it a lot easier when the girls are as brilliant as they are. There hasn’t been one time when I've felt unwelcome!" 🤗
Jodie Bartle on how "brilliant" teammates have helped her settle in Scotland 🏴https://t.co/DOWDQouTzO
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) March 10, 2020
“Our goal was to win and finish top of the group,” he told the official Celtic website. “It wasn’t a great first half but we managed to get one goal, but we lifted the tempo in the second half. We had longer combinations and we had a lot of the possession and we exploited the spaces better. We scored four but missed many clear chances”.
“For me it wasn’t a great day, as we need to assess one of our players for an injury now,” he confessed. “The warm-up was too short because of the previous team on the pitch, which is an issue. We need to protect the players as things can be avoided. It affected the quality of both teams in the first half, so I wasn’t very happy at the beginning.
“I’m happy with the result, but unhappy with potentially having an injury now. We can’t have less than 35 minutes to warm-up,” he stated.
You can perfectly understand the frustrations for Alonso. It’s a long hard season for a squad to manage injuries and suspensions as it is without that sort of unnecessary loss of a player.
On Sunday it’s back to league football as Celtic travel to the capital. Opponents Hearts started their league campaign with a 3-0 reverse at Rangers but have since had consecutive wins for the first time, both coming in the SWPL Cup, first against Boroughmuir Thistle before an impressive 2-0 win against Stirling University with Lisa Swanson scoring a second goal in five days, before a fantastic finish from substitute Taylor Hamill into the top corner from 20 yards completed the win for the Jambos. As such any confidence dented by the opening league defeat should have been repaired ahead of hosting Celtic.
👩=✊
Get following @celticfc on TikTok!#IWD2020 #EachforEqual pic.twitter.com/UEal7PPi0J
— Celtic FC Women (@CelticFCWomen) March 8, 2020
It’s a big day for Celtic on Sunday. As The Bhoys travel across the City to face ‘the’ Rangers the Ghirls head to Edinburgh looking to build on a wonderful start to the season. It will be a Beautiful Sunday indeed for Celtic if both sides can win maximum points from their respective fixtures.
The Celtic Star will report back later in the week with the team news and thoughts of head coach Fran Alonso ahead of the game and maybe someone at Celtic reading this could look at supplying ourselves and indeed any of the other Celtic fan sites with photography from the game. which will in turn help build interest in the team. Makes sense surely?
Niall J
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