Women’s FA Cup: Ipswich Town ready to measure improvement against Manchester City

Peskett scored the only goal when Ipswich beat Bournemouth 1-0 to set up the tie against City.

Town also reached the fourth round in the past two seasons and in 2022 made it all the way to the last eight before losing 1-0 to WSL side West Ham.

They are unbeaten in Women’s National League Southern Premier this season, winning nine of their 11 games so far, and lead the table on goal difference from Hashtag United.

Peskett is the second highest scorer in the league with 16 goals – four of them in a 13-0 demolition of MK Dons – and Jamaica international Thomas has also reached double figures.

“We prepare the same for whoever we’re playing, whether it’s bottom of the league, top of the league or a WSL team,” said Thomas.

“As a whole and individuals we need to try and prepare the same and have the same mindset really.”

Manager Joe Sheehan, though, believes ‘more of the same’ will not be enough against City.

“More often than not from the season so far we’ve been the dominant team and now, for the first time, that has totally swung in Manchester City’s favour,” he said.

“We’ve played in our way for some time now, that’s been really consistent. Clearly we can’t go with that same approach.

“Do we want to come too far away from that? Not really. But there might be some phases of the game where we might have to make totally different decisions than what we’d normally do in a league game.”

Sheehan admitted that memories of that 2020 meeting with City had provided the “foundation” for their work in the build-up to the re-match.

“Preparing for these type of teams is a long intense process and while it’s going to be an exciting occasion, we would clearly have preferred to have a team that we would have more chance of being on a level playing field against,” he added.

“I think we prepare for this game in isolation because of the magnitude of it, the level of opposition, it is a unique challenge.

“Last time we played them, we probably did get a bit excited and probably did think that we could cause a bit of a problem, whereas this time around it’s just about trying to be competitive and trying to learn from the experience of playing them that can hopefully serve us well for the remainder of our season.”