‘The team wants to do better’ – Aston Villa hungry to grow says Arroyo | OneFootball

Aston Villa head coach Natalia Arroyo says that her side are keen to do better after last weekend’s 4-1 defeat to Manchester United at Villa Park.

The Villans competed with The Red Devils for 70 minutes before crumbling in the closing stages, conceding three late goals.

When speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s trip to Everton, Aston Villa boss Arroyo said that her team are hungry to do better.

“We need to have a bit more pride,” Arroyo said. “When we cannot win a game, it matters how you lose it. I expect the team to stay together in the moments where we are losing. Let’s see if we can show this because we want to compete in every game for everything.

“We want to fight to be higher in the table but this won’t happen if we only compete for 70 minutes, we need to grow. The challenge is to be a team that can compete for 90 minutes.

“We are hungry. We are happy with some parts of the game but we are disappointed with some others. We have talked about it honestly and the team wants to do better.”

Aston Villa twice threw away the lead in their previous meeting with Everton. The two sides drew 3-3 at Villa Park in November. Arroyo says that Aston Villa are prepared for Everton’s unique tactical approach.

She said “You never know what can happen in a game against Everton because they are quite strategical in how they approach a game. They play strange games that are difficult for the opponent to change to what they prefer.

“We’ve been talking about being a little bit better in possession and not having as many transitions as we had against Manchester United for example. We want to be the team that we were against Brighton in some moments, against Arsenal and like we were before the end of the year.

“Out of possession, it’s about being ready for the high-mobility that they have and for the systems that they want to try.

“We are ready to be better than we were at Villa Park.”

Everton are winless at Goodison Park this season and the pressure has recently built on manager Brian Sørensen. While The Toffees have difficulties to overcome, Arroyo is focused on Aston Villa’s preparations for the game.

She said “I can see their problems but I also think about the fact that they scored three goals against us. They have been struggling to score but they had their best day against us. We gave them opportunities to find solutions.

“I don’t want to look too much at their situation. I am aware of it and I can imagine that Brian [Sørensen] is suffering a little bit more than me but he always finds a way of getting through a struggle.

“We are focusing on ourselves because we feel the pressure after the Manchester United game. It’s the second week without winning, so we want to win but we know it will be tough.”

Aston Villa’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Everton kicks-off at 11.55am on Sunday.