'We know..': Steph Libbey on Sunderland's outstanding campaign so far and the positives from recent defeat

Steph Libbey is confident that Sunderland are ready to bounce back in their Women's Championship campaign after a disappointing loss to Reading last time out.

Sunderland's assistant head coach said that although the Black Cats were disappointed with the 1-0 defeat, there was a huge amount of pride in the way they dominated large parts of the game despite playing almost an hour with just ten players. And though Sunderland were beaten by Chelsea in the Conti Cup in their last competitive appearance, that was an invaluable learning experience for the group.

Sunderland face Lewes at Eppleton on Sunday (noon kick off) currently sitting second in the table, with their title dream still very much alive.

"When you look at the Reading game as a whole, we went down to ten after half an hour and you can't really prepare for that," Libbey said.

"But we adapted really well and actually in the second half, we gave a really good account of ourselves both in and out of possession. We were hit with a bit of a sucker punch in transition, the stats show that we did well and we just couldn't find that final bit. We'll take a lot from it as we go into this last run of games, hopefully putting ourselves in a good position when we come to that last game against Crystal Palace.

"There's that cliche about not getting too high or low and we were coming back from that game on the bus and seeing some of the other results come in, and there were other shocks on surprises.

"We know Lewes have got a threat, they've signed a lot of players and so we know they're going to come with something a little bit different to when we last played them. We've got to be on it from the first whistle, they've had some fast starts of late and we know that. There's a lot of hard work into getting us to where we are now and to some people there'll be a bit of surprise it's not to us, we know the calibre of player and staff that we have. We talk a lot about togetherness and in my opinion, that's where we are we are. There were times in the Reading game where it felt as if we had an extra player, people just did that little bit more - I think that's brought us even closer together as a group to be honest."

Sunderland will be without Louise Griffiths for the Lewes game as she serves her suspension following the Reading defeat, while midfielder Katie Kitching is still on international duty with New Zealand.

Libbey is confident that Sunderland have the depth to cope in their absence: "We utilised the Conti Cup to give players minutes and to have a look at people in different positions, which we did in pre season as well so you're prepared for when these scenarios come around.

"Even though some of these players are young, look at someone like Katy Watson who recently made her 50th appearance, for someone of her age that's outstanding. So a lot of these players are young but they're gaining a lot of experience as we are as a club, so there's going to be opportunities and it's up to those players who get the shirt to try and keep it."