AFC Bournemouth Women vs Hashtag United Preview

Steve Cuss’ Bournemouth side are visiting Hashtag United ahead of their clash in the National League Cup.

Both sides are in great form with them being unbeaten in their respective leagues. The sides play each other in the 3rd round of the National League Cup on Sunday.

The two teams both missed out on playing their league fixtures last week due to them being postponed because of the weather. However, the last game Bournemouth played was a 5-0 win over Kent on October 10th – a staggering difference to Hashtag’s last game which was only 11 days ago.

Hashtag United are one of the most unique clubs in world football. Both the men’s and women’s team play in the lower divisions of English football however, they have a bigger social media following than most Premier League (or WSL) clubs.

This game against Hashtag seems tailor-made for Steve Cuss’ Bournemouth side. When asked about how he has prepared for this weekend’s game he said: “We try and find out as much as we can about the opposition. If we’ve got video footage of them, we’ll put that together and as much information we’ve got gets shared with the players and then we say what we’re going to do in training leading up to the game to try and exploit some of their weak points and then what we need to work on to negate their threat.”

Bournemouth’s start to the season has only meant positive things for the side; team morale is sky-high, and the players seem extremely confident. When speaking to Abby Jones about this weekend’s game she said: “We just need to focus on our game and how we play it. We do talk about the opposition a lot and sometimes we change our tactics depending on who we play. Sticking to our game plan is something that’s really important because if we play the way we want to play we should win.”

It seems that Cuss’ high intensity training sessions have revolutionised this team. Katie Kingshott explained how the change in the side’s identity has allowed them to push on: “We do a lot of possession work and I feel like a lot of the new players that we’ve had come in this season have brought a lot of attacking flair. In turn, it has allowed us to solidify the back four; we’ve changed our formation up a bit, so we now play with wing-backs as opposed to wingers. That’s allowed us to be a lot more creative when going forward”. With 18 goals scored and just two conceded it is clear to see that the manager has allowed this side to find another gear.

Cuss seemed very calm ahead of the fixture against Hashtag United, but it was clear him and his side were itching to get back playing football again. When asked about how frustrating it is when not only their games get called off but at such short notice both Kingshott and her manager were keen to emphasise how disappointing it is due to how much effort everyone puts into training. Cuss went onto explain that recently he has had to change his training sessions in order to give the players more game time.

With sun and clouds forecast in Canvey Island, expect an exciting match as two of the best performing teams in the National League go head-to-head on Sunday.