Aberdeen Women interim manager Gavin Levey doesn’t need to hype up the Dons’ clash with Spartans as their last meetings should already do the talking.
The last two times the sides have met have been entertaining contests, which finished 1-1 in December and 2-1 to Spartans in April, with the former match being Levey’s first game in interim change.
Fast forward five months and Levey is still at the helm preparing for Sunday’s encounter with the Edinburgh side, who are undefeated in their last six games.
Aberdeen go to Ainslie Park in decent form having won four out of their six games since the SWPL 1 split. The Reds secured their biggest margin of victory in a league game this season with a 5-1 win over Glasgow Women on Wednesday.
A confident Levey is looking forward to what he expects to be another thrilling game against Debbie McCulloch’s side.
Levey said: “The last time we played Spartans we felt really hard done by – we just didn’t get the break in terms of decisions.
“It’s the only time this year that I’ll say I think decisions went against us.
“It’s another one of those games where the team talk speaks for itself. We want to go down there and give them a really tough game and make it as entertaining as the last two games against Spartans have been.
“I’m confident that with the players we’ve got here, the way we are playing and with what’s at stake that we can go down there and perform well.”
Levey hopes to utilise squad more in last run of games
With four games remaining, Levey hopes to be able to give more of the squad game-time, however, he knows it will be dependent on the stakes at hand with the Dons not mathematically safe from finishing in the SWPL 1 relegation play-off spot.
The Dons are currently seven points clear of 11th-placed Hamilton Accies who occupy the play-off spot and five ahead of Dundee United in tenth.
But Levey’s side still have to play both relegation-threatened teams, with United coming up on Wednesday night and Accies on the penultimate weekend of the season.
Levey said: “The mood is good and it’s about regrouping now.
“Over the next few games, individual players will need to perform to the level we hope they can and we can have start to have conversations and see where that takes us.
“We’ve been a bit unfortunate this year – we’ve not had many games without some pressure because when we picked the team up, it was about getting points on the board.
“Every game has been meaningful because we’ve got to stay in this league and I think we’re doing well enough now to show that we’re capable of playing in SWPL 1.
“There have been games where we’ve wanted to utilise the squad but mistakes and errors late in the game have been costly and prevented us from making changes and taking risks.
“We were able to make some changes against Glasgow Women at half-time and we told the team it wasn’t because anyone was performing badly.”
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