Birmingham City Women Head Coach Darren Carter has praised his side’s resilience amid a season of change with Blues now outside favourites for promotion back to the Women’s Super League.
A win of five consecutive victories has seen Blues move up to second in the Barclays Women’s Championship with two games to go.
Darren Carter’s side find themselves four points behind leaders Bristol City going into the penultimate gameweek, a win against Durham required to keep the promotion dream alive while the Robins must drop points to keep the title race open until the final day.
The Blues head coach has credited his squad’s mentality for their recent form as the Second City outfit look to bounce back after relegation from the top flight last campaign.
Carter said: “We've had to show resilience at times this year.
“We'd managed to keep a good real core of the team from last year, the ones who fought their hearts out to try and keep the team in the WSL. They're warriors, they're the players I can really trust to go out there and perform, so I think what you're seeing there is that we've managed to eradicate little mistakes, and probably little teething problems from earlier in the season.
“When you're trying to change your way of playing, you're always going to expect the odd mishap here and there and you hope it's few but as it stands with the championship at the moment, you only have 22 games. There's no real room for error which in our case hopefully doesn't cost us.”
Blues have also shown their quality against higher-tier opposition this season, beating WSL sides Brighton & Hove Albion and Everton in the Conti Cup and FA Cup respectively.
Victory against the Toffees contributed to the side’s progression to the quarter-finals of the competition while Carter believes it is testament to the squad’s quality and underdog spirit in big moments.
He added: “They've really gone all out when we've played higher opposition and backed themselves and again, it’s probably a little bit of that underdog mentality. When we came into this league, that was another thing we had to change as we were fighting against it last year in the WSL whereas this year there was an expectancy for us to go win games but to rise to the levels of a WSL team, go and compete in every game we played this year… there have been really strong performances.
“It shows that the players can get to that level, which is a confidence booster for them, but also shows me that we've got a very good team, very good squad.”
Blues welcome Bristol City to St. Andrew’s next Sunday and could prove to be the title decider if results go their way this weekend. A seventh consecutive win of the season would be needed for the hosts to be crowned champions with the former Birmingham City player hoping to reward their loyal support.
The 39-year-old added: “The support is always much appreciated.
“Whether you win things or you don't, as long as they're proud coming to watch, and they see the team given everything, and they see a Birmingham team which is one that's hard working, grit and grind but is also one that can play. So yeah, that's what we try and give them and hopefully we can reward them at the end of the season.”
Birmingham City first make the trip to Maiden Castle to take on Durham once again on Sunday April 23, kick-off 2pm.
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