Thomson: Squad Must Replicate Same Attitude

MALKY Thomson states his side must approach tomorrow night’s game in the right manner as Rangers host Hibs in the SWPL at Broadwood stadium.

The two teams face for the third time this campaign with the last being in the Sky Sports Cup final in December in which the Light Blues ran out 2-0 winners to claim the first silverware of the season.

Speaking to the media ahead of their next league clash Thomson says they must replicate the attitude levels they showed when the sides last met to come out on top in the contest.

He said: “Hibs will want to beat us, they will not want to go again with Rangers dominating them, we need to be ready and the girls know that.

“This will be a real tough game and it will be another game that the girls will have to approach in the exact same manner, and the same levels of confidence and trust in each other and working for each other.

“We are aware that Hibs will be up for this game.”

The manager believes the feeling of success from making history in winning the league cup for the first time will be the message moving forward to help drive the players them on to try repeat that to claim the honours that are still up for grabs in the remainder of this season.

He added: “It was the victory and the feeling that we had of euphoria, that feeling of what we had just achieved and made history, and how that felt.

“It was great feeling and we want to try bring that back, in order to do that we have to approach it in the same manner that we did in the cup final, with total respect for Hibs.”

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Thomson has made use of his squad in recent weeks making several changes in his last two outings and he believes it is important to keep everyone fresh to keep driving the team on for the future games ahead.

He continued: “We are in a position where we can use the squad, the competition levels are high during training and I think it is important that we keep every player engaged and hungry.

“You start putting a load on players that don’t need it, especially when you have such a good squad, so to use that spreads the load a bit.

“It keeps the competition levels up and if we are winning then it is doing its job.”

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Thomson has heaped praise on the returning Megan Bell after she played her first 90 minutes of the season in the recent 4-1 win over Aberdeen after a long battle with injuries in recent campaigns.

He said: “Megan has had to really dig deep in terms of motivating herself and getting through those injuries which was really trying on her, but she has come through it and is now fully fit and ready to play.

“Now she is starting to find her form in training and is really bringing a strong competition and contribution to the training, she is ready to play and can in numerous positions, wide and centrally as well.

“What is pleasing about Megan is the length that she had to go to mentally to get through this and give herself the confidence to get back to the player of the potential that we saw.

“We are looking at data now where she is running her high speed and sprint distance are up there and back to where they were before.

“I think it was important and fair play to the sport scientists and medical people here that we have took our time with it, but we have done it diligently, in a sense that lets hoping that she now has a run of 18 months fully fit as opposed to 18 months out being injured.”


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