Why Natalia Arroyo trusts her Aston Villa side against Manchester City | OneFootball

Natalia Arroyo

Aston Villa boss Natalia Arroyo says she trusts her side to acquit themselves in the big games – including Sunday’s meeting with league leaders Manchester City.

She had said prior to the midweek clash with bottom-of-the-table Liverpool that she wanted to create a “winning culture” – and take more points in matches where the pressure is on, rather than games where they are underdogs.

And after a 3-0 victory at Villa Park on Thursday, she says that her side are feeling good – but still working on their consistency.

“Preparing a game knowing that the previous game was a win, it’s always better,” she told SheKicks.net in a press conference on Saturday morning. “But it’s anyway a challenge that we have – we weren’t able to do two perfect performances in a row. We were having a good performance and then the other [next] one was good in the first half but not good enough in the second half.

“So we need to keep working on this consistency. We can’t stop working and being ready and focused and maybe in alert, so I hope the players are ready for that.”

Natalia Arroyo: We need to be super ready

Arroyo added: “And so far I really trust the team in these big games because they are always switched on. We are struggling maybe in games where this pressure, this ‘we must win’ – we were maybe worse in these scenarios.

“But we need to know that Man City is killing everybody when you don’t start the game well – okay, ‘Bam! Bam!’ and they destroy you. When you can be tired, when you think, ‘Oh, we are so close,’ they kill you anyway, so we need to be super ready.

“And hopefully we can be as strong as we were against similar opponents. So yeah, every game is different, but so far the team was consistent in that game, in this type of games, and I’m really proud of that.

“But in football, it’s about doing it again, doing it again, doing it again – so we can have a nice morning like the last one in Manchester [when Villa beat Manchester United 1-0], or we can be just beaten in minute 20. So we need to be ready for all the scenarios.”