Everton Ladies about to get physical

Blues Ready To Get Physical

Everton ready to put lessons learned against Reading into practice against Nottingham Forest.

Everton’s pre-season defeat to Reading has served as perfect preparation for their FA Cup fourth round tie with Nottingham Forest on Sunday according to Dan Turner.

While the result – a 3-0 defeat – was hardly ideal, Turner insists the lessons learned from the friendly will serve the Blues well.

The analysis of Forest suggests they will, like the Royals, present a physical challenge for the Toffees, who have worked hard on improving that side of their game.

“We will be expected to win on Sunday playing against lower league opposition – but we know Forest will be up for it,” said Turner. “We know it will be physical but if we match them we will be ok.

“We failed to do that against Reading and we got punished for it. But we know now that if we match up to Forest physically then hopefully our quality will shine through.

“We learned a hard lesson in that Reading game. They bullied us for 80 minutes and it was only in the last 10 that we really put a tackle in. That’s definitely something we have tried to pin down in training this week, trying to put that physical side across in our game, and hunting the ball down when we haven’t got it.”

While the squad are disappointed to have lost to the Royals, the prospect of another competitive outing is whetting the appetite.

“All the girls are up for it,” added Turner. “In the last couple of seasons we have done really well in the FA Cup – we got to the final two years ago and made the semi-finals last time.

“We want to do well again so the girls are buzzing for this game.

“We didn’t really show up against Reading so we want to bounce back from that. Hopefully Forest is a test we can overcome.”