London City Lionesses ‘an interesting challenge’ for Brighton says Vidošić | OneFootball

Brighton & Hove Albion head coach Dario Vidošić says that this afternoon’s opponents London City Lionesses pose an interesting challenge for his side.

The Pride have impressed in their debut season in the Barclays Women’s Super League, collecting 15 points from nine games so far.

When speaking in the pre-match press conference, Brighton & Hove Albion head coach Vidošić highlighted London City Lionesses’ quality and said that his side face an interesting game at the Copperjax Community Stadium.

“They’ve done well,” Vidošić said. “It’s not the natural kind of team from previous years that has been promoted, these girls know this level very well and have played at a very high level. 

“If you take Nikita [Parris] for example, she is the third-best goalscorer in Super League history, Freya Godfrey has now been called into the Lionesses, [Izzy] Goodwin won’t be far away from being called into the national team because she’s doing well with the Under-23s. You go through that squad and there’s a lot of experience, they’ve played at the highest level, the biggest stage.

“As a team, they’ve found their feet, had some good results and they like to lock on player-to-player. It makes for an interesting challenge for us but we will work and try and find ways to implement our game, make it as difficult as possible for them as well. We know it’s a tough game but it’s a fantastic challenge.”

Former Seagulls Nikita Parris and Poppy Pattinson are now members of the London City Lionesses squad and Vidošić is looking forward to this afternoon’s reunion.

He said “They were both terrific. I really enjoyed working with them and look forward to seeing them this weekend. I saw Nikita a few weeks ago. She was finishing off her coaching course or a block of that at the time, so it was really nice to have a little chat with her.

“It’ll be nice to see them and hopefully, we will keep them quiet. We know that they’re two good players that we know well and they know us well. Looking forward to seeing them again.”

Brighton & Hove Albion’s final two games of 2025 look tough with Chelsea to come next weekend. Vidošić is looking towards both matches positively.

He said “For me, I go day-by-day, game-by-game. We don’t think ‘we just want to get through it and get to January’. 

“For me, it never changes; we are going to win, that’s our intent and then we have another fantastic game at home against the current champions who are undefeated. We felt last year that we were close; we conceded a goal that was offside and we had a pretty strong penalty not given to us. We can take a lot of confidence.

“First, we’ve got London City, so we are preparing for them and look forward to another good battle.”

Brighton & Hove Albion’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at London City Lionesses kicks-off at 12pm.