Ipswich Town winger Lucy Ashworth-Clifford hopes finally climbing off the bottom of WSL 2 is just the start as they look to end the season in positive style.<\/p>\n
Town moved above Portsmouth after beating them 2-1 away from home last weekend in only their second league win since last season’s promotion.<\/p>\n
Ashworth-Clifford was one of nine new players brought in in January and was involved in the build-up to Rianna Dean’s opening goal – with Sophie Peskett adding the second 10 minutes from time.<\/p>\n
They will take on Sheffield United at Colchester United FC on Sunday and hope to extend a three-match unbeaten run.<\/p>\n
“The form that we’re in right now [is good], and hopefully it continues that way,” she told BBC Radio Suffolk.<\/p>\n
“Sheffield’s not going to be an easy game. When we played them in the [FA] Cup we lost but there were definitely positive moments from that game.<\/p>\n
“We can take all the positive moments from the past three games and show what we can do in this one.”<\/p>\n
Ashworth-Clifford spent the first half of the season with Italian Serie A club Lazio, having previously scored 12 goals in 59 appearances for Celtic.<\/p>\n
Of her time in Italy, she said: “It was a great experience, I wouldn’t change it for the world. It was a big transition language-wise and the football is very different over there. <\/p>\n
“It was very tactical, not as free-flowing as I like to do – I don’t like to be a put in a restraint. Nothing against their type of football, I just didn’t really fit into that.<\/p>\n
“And I like to be a character in the changing room and when you can only speak five words of the language, it’s quite difficult!”<\/p>\n
Ipswich first approached the 26-year-old last summer when she spoke to then head coach Joe Sheehan but the deal did not come off.<\/p>\n
Now David Wright is in charge as interim boss following Sheehan’s decision to step down early last month.<\/p>\n
Ashworth-Clifford and Wright both come from the North West of England and she said: “He used to live next to my high school so it’s a nice connection.”<\/p>\n
Wright, who has played for Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Colchester, is delighted by the way the team have raised their game in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Only one team will be relegated to the Women’s National League and victory over Sheffield United would put them level on points with Sunday’s opponents.<\/p>\n
“There’s been a lot of changes within the group and staff-wise, and for the girls to react in such a professional manner, full credit to them,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We knew how big a result that would be [at Portsmouth]. All of a sudden it pushes off the bottom and that psychological edge is a real boost and brings the clubs that are above us a bit closer. <\/p>\n
“We’ve got to keep the wheels turning, we’ve had a really good training week and we go into Sunday full of positivity.” <\/p>\n
Listen to full interviews with Lucy Ashworth-Clifford and David Wright on BBC Radio Suffolk from 18:00 GMT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ipswich Town winger Lucy Ashworth-Clifford hopes finally climbing off the bottom of WSL 2 is just the start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-477465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}