Sunderland Ladies hoping for fitness boost for Liverpool clash

Mel Reay’s side reached the Women’s FA Cup fourth round with a hard-fought win at Brighouse Town at the weekend, and their attention quickly turns to the visit of Liverpool on Wednesday evening.

A spectacular 25-yard strike from Emily Scarr was enough to settle the contest in West Yorkshire – a welcome win for the Black Cats who could only name three substitutes in a squad missing Charlotte Potts, Grace McCatty, Abby Joice, Faye Mullen, Jess Brown, Irish Achterhof and Emily Hutchinson.

“Getting through to the next round was the most important thing,” Reay told safc.com.

“When we got [to Brighouse], the pitch was poor, and you’ve got to try and play to the conditions, and I thought we did that really well.”

“It’s hard when you are just telling people to try and play percentages and play a little bit in behind because that’s not normally how we try and play but it worked really well in the second half.

Reay added: “A moment of quality through Emily [Scarr] and Maria [Farrugia] and we’ve managed to get a good goal.”

Sunderland welcome Liverpool to Eppleton hoping to avenge November’s league 3-1 league defeat to the Reds, with Conti Cup group A wide open and all five teams in with a shout of qualifying for the next stage.

Reay said: “We’ll have a few bodies back for Wednesday which will be good."

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