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Brighton & Hove Albion head coach Dario Vidošić wants his side to dominate and play football their way when they take on Manchester City at The Joie Stadium on Friday evening.
The Seagulls lost both games against The Cityzens by the odd goal last season. They came out of both matches with huge credit.
When speaking to the media ahead of the latest content, Brighton & Hove Albion boss Vidošić said that his side can take some confidence from last season’s meetings, although the focus is on the here and now, playing attractive football their way.
“A little bit [of impetus from last season] but it’s a new season, they’ve got a new manager, so it’s different ideas and ways of working,” Vidošić said. “They’ve had the full week to prepare and I’m sure they’ve continued to work. Naturally, their identity will become more and more clear as the weeks go on.
“For us, we just take it from what we’ve seen and what we expect. We know some of the individuals quite well from their history in the league and their national tendencies, so we will need to be a little bit smart with how we collate that all together and the ideas that we have.
“We want to go there, play our brand and try to be the dominant team. We take a lot of experience and confidence from last year, we want to play them toe-to-toe. I have no doubt that it’ll be a great game of football and it’s one I’m looking forward to.”
Manchester City are under new management this season with Andrée Jeglertz having been appointed head coach over the summer. Vidošić has seen some minor tweaks in The Cityzens’ playing style but he is preparing for much of the same.
He said “The idea is quite similar. They want to possess the ball, they want to play in the opponent’s half. When they don’t have the ball, it’s high-press, so they want to try and win the ball back as quickly as possible.
“We’ve seen little different things that they’re doing but I think a lot of the players that were there, they still have those tendencies.
“It’s a little bit hard to judge them from one game, so we will prepare as best we can for what will no doubt be a tough clash.”
After ending last season with six games without a clean sheet, Brighton & Hove Albion opened the new campaign with a goalless draw against Aston Villa. Vidošić is pleased to be going into the Manchester City fixture on the back of a shutout.
He said “It was really pleasing. First season last year, we tried to instil as much as we possibly could in a short timeframe but it takes time, it takes experience, it takes learning, it takes getting it wrong to get it right. We have worked tremendously hard, the girls have taken on a lot of information in pre-season and that was really pleasing [to keep a clean sheet].”
Brighton & Hove Albion’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Manchester City kicks-off at 7.30pm on Friday evening.
