Sunderland skipper looking for goal boost against Villa

The Lady Black Cats host WSL2 strugglers Aston Villa at South Shields’ home ground in the Continental Tyres Cup (6.30pm kick-off).

Staniforth scored a goal-of-the-season candidate on Sunday to give Sunderland the lead in the WSL1 encounter with Liverpool, but the visitors responded in style to triumph 4-1.

“I hope it’s not as windy (as the weekend)!” she joked.

“It is a real opportunity for us. They are not doing so great in their table at the moment.

“Our first half performance (against Liverpool) showed that we can create - hopefully we can score many more against Aston Villa.

“Whoever turns up on the day, we have got to be willing to break into the box, be daring, be bold and try to get shots off.”

Sunderland are mid-table in the top flight after two wins from four games, both victories coming away from home.

Meanwhile, Villa will be looking forward to some Continental Tyres Cup action after falling to four straight defeats in the second tier.

Their first three games saw narrow defeats to Brighton & Hove Albion, Tottenham, and Sheffield, but the Villans were beaten 6-0 by Doncaster Rovers Belles at the weekend.

There was a close match between the sides in their most recent encounter during the Spring Series back in March – with the Black Cats triumphing 3-2 down in the Midlands.

Aston Villa first team coach Iain Sankey said: “The message to the team is we’ve got to be a lot better.

“We have to take our chances when we get them in terms of where the game is concerned.

“We’ve got to go and play as well as we can. It’s not ideal because we don’t have a lot of time in training to work on anything, it’s just straight into that game.

“It’s going to be another tough one and if we don’t learn lessons quickly then we’ll come away with the same result.

“It’s about competing and not being second to the ball when the ball drops in those areas.”

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