‘We do expect a tough challenge’ – Everton boss Phelan looks ahead to Crystal Palace game

‘We do expect a tough challenge’ – Everton boss Phelan looks ahead to Crystal Palace game Everton head coach Scott Phelan says that he is expecting a tough test from newly-promoted Crystal Palace this weekend. The Toffees travel to the VBS Community Stadium to face The Eagles on the opening day of the new Barclays Women’s Super League season. Crystal Palace enjoyed some real momentum as they claimed promotion back to the top tier at the end of last season and Phelan is expecting a tough test for his Everton side this weekend. “It’s a tough game,” Phelan said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “We are playing a newly-promoted team who are at home. It’ll be an occasion for them and rightly so. Their mentality will be used to winning after last season. “We do expect a tough challenge. We will prepare for that and hopefully, Crystal Palace can also expect a tough challenge as well.” Everton face all three promoted sides in their first five games but Phelan doesn’t necessarily see that as an advantage. He said “Early in the season, every team is at their most optimistic, so the early games will be tough for everybody whether it’s newly-promoted teams or WSL clubs that have been around for a long time. The ambitions will be at the highest and each game will be very tough. “The motivation of the newly-promoted teams will be to prove a point I’d imagine and show that they deserve to be in this league. “The fact that they’re newly-promoted doesn’t mean much to us. We need to prepare for the best version of the opponent and hopefully, that will bring us some points on the board.” Going on to discuss ambitions for his Everton side, Phelan said that he wants the team to be competitive in every game. He said “When we start a new phase with a new regime, the temptation can be to be overly optimistic and that’s not in a negative way. We know that the team and the players that we have brought in are of really good potential. To continue to grow in this first phase, it’s about being competitive and really developing our identity as a team. That’s the main thing that we would like to achieve. “I think we showed enough in the eight games that we were here for last season that we can be competitive against stronger teams. We are maybe not there yet to go head-to-head with them every week but to be competitive in those games would be good. We want to win those games against the teams in and around us, that’d be an ambition for the team; to be competitive in every one and to win the games that we are expected to win.” Everton’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Crystal Palace kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.