Nottingham Forest Women travel to the New Bucks Head Stadium on Sunday in the FA Women's National League Premier division for a top-of-the-table clash against defending champions Wolves.
Forest are looking to extend their six-point lead with another win to push for the play-off spot and a chance for promotion into the Barclays Women's Championship next season.
Ahead of Sunday's game, Nottingham Forest manager Andy Cook told Nottingham Post: “Ultimately, it doesn't matter who we play. We can only try and get three points, that's the secret, I suppose...”
Wolves lost out to Southampton in the play-offs last summer and were trying to repeat their impeccable form from the last campaign but currently have 25 points from 11 games and a game in hand while Forest lead the way on 31 points from 12 games and a whopping plus-36 goal difference.
In contrast to last season’s fifth-place finish, he said: “We were all very frustrated with it and there were a lot of questions in the club of what we need to do in the summer - how do we need to recruit, where do we need to improve the team and what do we need to do but, speaking to the players that we kept, and we moved a couple of players on and we sort of had good open conversations with them.
"Mackenzie Smith, who is duel registered with Leicester City and Forest. Willie [Kirk] brought her back into the first team squad there and she's thriving. She's available for us this weekend which is a huge boost for us. We can use a player like that that has played minutes recently against the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and Brighton in the WSL [Women's Super League].
“Charlotte Greengrass has been a centre half or fullback for the previous two years for us. But when we came back from coronavirus we tried her as a centre forward and she scored a few goals there so over the summer I said to her ‘you're going to be a centre forward this season’ and she's top goal scorer this season with eleven goals.”
The last time these two teams met was in September this season, Wolves secured three points in their 4-2 victory Cook said: “We were just disappointed in the manner that we conceded the goals. We didn't battle and we didn't fight as well as we could have, you could see that we were a little bit standoffish.
"We weren't ourselves, especially in the first two goals. The third goal was from a corner and the fourth goal was within the 92nd minute when we were pushing to get an equaliser, I think it's three two of the time.
“We ended up making three changes - we've had a front five pretty much a middle four and just Lindsey Harkin at the back on her own at some points in the game. So we really went for it.
“[This season] We just focus on the game that's in front of us and just try to work like that, it's the same for this weekend. It's just another game,” said Cook with eyes on the playoff spot, seeking promotion into the second tier.
Nottingham Forest will look to beat the defending league champions at the New Bucks Head stadium kicking off at 2 pm on Sunday the 12th of February.
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