Everton boss Sørensen expecting tough game against Aston Villa side with new freedom | OneFootball

Everton manager Brian Sørensen says that this weekend’s opponents Aston Villa have been playing with more freedom since opting for a mid-season managerial change.

After a difficult start to the campaign, The Villans parted company with former boss Robert de Pauw last month. Shaun Goater has been placed in interim charge for the time being. Under Goater, Aston Villa have won three consecutive games, scoring 16 goals in the process.

Everton kick-off 2025 with a fixture against The Villans at Walton Hall Park this weekend and manager Sørensen says that the Midlands club’s leadership change will have offered some new freedom to the players.

“I think it’s like what we’ve seen at Arsenal,” Sørensen said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “The players have a bit more freedom because there’s an interim manager come in who maybe doesn’t go in with a 100% clear plan of what they’re doing. It’s a bit more over to the players and they can enjoy and play their game. They know that there’s potentially a new manager to take charge. I think it’s just that manager bounce that you get.

“I think they’ve got very good players in every position, they’ve got a very good bench to mix the game up, so we know it’s going to be tough. I don’t know what went wrong at Villa but when they made the change, they got a bit more freedom and took advantage of that in the games that they played.

“We are expecting a very tough opponent. They have been very unlucky with their season so far if you look at the game picture. We know that we have to be at our very best to get some points.”

Everton’s next three league matches are against teams in and around them. Sørensen is looking at the fixtures as important rather than favourable, although his side are taking things game-by-game.

He said “We look at it one game at a time but when you can beat [Manchester] City, you can beat anyone, you just have to get it right on the day and that’s our focus. You can also turn it around and say that it’s a very important block of games in terms of climbing the table.

“I’m really focusing on Villa on Saturday and then what comes after, we will put our focus to that. We want to kick-off the year in a good place. We did that last year against Villa in the FA Cup and we had a good spring season despite the injuries.

“We’ve fixed the depth in the squad and we now just need to get them on the same page which will take time. We are working hard to make sure they are ready.”

Everton’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa kicks-off at 5.30pm on Saturday evening. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.