BRISTOL ON THE UP, SAYS EARPS

BRISTOL Academy goalkeeper Mary Earps is ecstatic with the recent form of her defence and believes with three wins in their last four matches the side is on a high ahead of the season run-in.

Relegation-threatened Bristol currently sit bottom of the WSL 1 table, but after two wins in the Continental Tyres Cup and a league victory over Notts County, they are clawing their way back towards the pack.

And Earps, 22, is convinced that those cup victories over WSL 2 sides are priceless, especially when clean sheets abound.

“People can say they’d expect us to come away with a win, but Aston Villa and Yeovil are two of the better sides in WSL 2 and they were strong opponents,” said Earps.

“We prepared properly for those two games and performed properly, so we came away with two convincing wins and two clean sheets. That gave us a lot of confidence and we can build on that now.

“As a goalkeeper, particularly, you can’t put into words what a clean sheet means. My target and the target for the defence is a clean sheet in every game that we go into, so to have picked up three in four games is brilliant.”