Villa Women boss on 'massive achievement' a top-half finish would represent

Carla Ward sums herself up in one word. "Resilience". It's a trait which has certainly been tested this season.

Her Aston Villa side have come a long way since a run of five straight defeats to start the campaign left them rock bottom of the WSL.

Though she believes the club overachieved on its way to finishing fifth last season, and those defeats included each of the top three, it was still a bruising mental blow.

Another 11 matches on, and they are eyeing up back-to-back top-half finishes. Sixth spot would surely represent a significant achievementgiven the significant recovery on the pitch, as well as mentally, that Ward has drawn out of her players.

Though speaking exclusively to Sky Sports ahead of welcoming Arsenal to the West Midlands on Sunday, she has little interest in caveats.

"It would be a massive achievement no matter how we started," she says. "No one's done it after finishing fifth. People look at the here and now, and people compare - let's look at the history of the WSL, the reality of it.

"Nobody has finished top six after finishing fifth, you've seen teams completely drop off after finishing fifth. I said in pre-season, if we could finish top six, after finishing fifth, that would be a massive achievement."

There is a curious oddity to finishing directly behind the two Manchester clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea - who have occupied the top-four spots in each of the last four seasons.

The closest any has come to repeating the feat is Reading, who managed seventh in 2020/21, though they never reached those heights again and were relegated last season.

There was never much belief of Villa suffering the same fate even when they did sit bottom in early November. Villa's squad had too much quality. But to now sit on the