Tottenham Hotspur Ladies will return to action after their scheduled contests against Chelsea and Arsenal were postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Spurs squad.
Rehanne Skinner's side will play host to Aston Villa Women on Sunday, with the visitors aiming to end a four-game winless run.
Match preview
© Reuters
Spurs will return to action on Sunday for the first time since March 13 after a number of positive COVID-19 tests resulted in their last two scheduled matches being called off.
Sitting in fifth position, Tottenham are seven points adrift of Manchester United who currently occupy third place, but Spurs do possess two games in hand over the Red Devils.
If Sunday's hosts are to keep their Champions League hopes alive then they must rediscover their goalscoring touch after failing to score in their last two matches.
In their most recent outing, Rehanne Skinner's charges lost at home for the first time in the WSL this season, with a Caroline Weir goal guiding Manchester City to a 1-0 victory at the Hive Stadium.
That strike was just the fourth league goal that Spurs have conceded at home this season, and with the hosts boasting the second-best home defence in the WSL, they will be confident of picking up a positive result on Sunday.
© Reuters
The visitors, on the other hand, are winless in their last four games, although a 1-1 draw against Reading last weekend did end a run of three consecutive defeats.
When Justine Vanhaevermaet struck from the spot it seemed as though Aston Villa were heading to yet another defeat, but Ramona Petzelberger had other ideas, netting 14 minutes from time to salvage a point from the contest.
Although they will take confidence from the draw against Reading, Carla Ward's side may be pessimistic about their chances of ending their winless run anytime soon.
In their next three matches, Villa will face three of the WSL top five, with Sunday's contest against Tottenham followed by meetings with Manchester United and Arsenal.
Despite a trip to North London on Sunday representing the first game of a tough set of fixtures, Ward will hope that her side can draw inspiration from the fact that four of Aston Villa's five league wins this season have occurred away from home.
- D
- L
- W
- W
- D
- L
- L
- L
- W
- W
- D
- L
- L
- W
- L
- L
- L
- D
Team News
© Reuters
Rebecca Spencer returned to the Tottenham goal for the Man City contest and the Jamaica international is expected to retain her place in the side for Sunday's encounter.
In fact, Skinner could name an unchanged team for the meeting with Aston Villa, despite Spurs losing last time out.
That would mean that So-Hyun Cho keeps her starting place, while Rachel Williams will be aiming to score against Aston Villa for the second time this season after netting in the reverse fixture.
The visitors, meanwhile, are still without Anna Patten who misses out for the second game due to injury, while Ward also has doubts over the availability of Jill Scott, Meaghan Sargeant and Petzelberger.
Alisha Lehmann is another fitness concern, and the best-case scenario for the Switzerland international could be a place on the bench.
In more positive news, Ruesha Littlejohn looks to have overcome a knock with the midfielder expected to come into the lineup for Sunday's contest.
Tottenham Hotspur Ladies possible starting lineup:
Spencer; Percival, Bartrip, Zadorsky, Harrop; Neville, Clemaron, Summanen, Simon; Williams, Cho
Aston Villa Women possible starting lineup:
Hampton; Mayling, Asante, Corsie, Pacheco; Littlejohn, Blindkilde-Browne, Allen; Hutton, Boye-Hlorkah, Gielnik
We say: Tottenham Hotspur Ladies 2-1 Aston Villa Women
Tottenham emerged victorious from the reverse fixture, and with the hosts hunting down a top three spot, we think that they will have enough quality to edge out Aston Villa on Sunday.
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Tottenham Hotspur Ladies win with a probability of 51.15%. A win for Aston Villa Women had a probability of 25.12% and a draw had a probability of 23.7%.
The most likely scoreline for a Tottenham Hotspur Ladies win was 1-0 with a probability of 9.78%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.67%) and 2-0 (8.46%). The likeliest Aston Villa Women win was 0-1 (6.45%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (11.17%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 6.5% likelihood.