BURNLEY Women head coach Matt Bee hopes his players will not let their emotions get the better of them when they face Women’s Super League heavyweights Manchester United.

Despite the FA Women’s National League North – the third tier of women’s football and the one in which the Clarets play – being curtailed for a second successive season this year, the FA Cup has continued. And a penalty shootout win against Sunderland last weekend has secured a clash with one of the country’s best in round four on Sunday.

“We have tried to keep training as normal as possible and work efficiently,” Bee said.

“That has been in line with how we have prepped for every game. The other week we had 360 minutes to prepare and that’s the same this week.

“It’s also about embracing the occasion as well. There’s a balance between ‘this isn’t just a normal game’ – it would be naive of me to stand in front of them and expect them to be in the same headspace as they would be for a standard league game because the media exposure around it and everything that comes with it is a different level.

“So it’s about that balance of working efficiently and harnessing that positive feeling that’s connected to the game in the right way to allow them to perform while not taking it too far so they step onto that pitch and have too much emotion.”

For Bee, whose ultimate ambition is to be plying his trade in the Super League, he aims to be able to take advantage of the occasion and pit himself against one of the women’s game’s best coaches.

“I think from a personal edge for me, I started coaching when I was 16 and started really in the women's game at 20 and I always had that ambition to want to be in the Super League," he said.

“I know it will take time. But as a manager, that's ultimately my end goal of where I want to be so this challenge this weekend is a huge one, to go up against Casey Stoney, who is doing an unbelievable job at Manchester United and to compete against the best is what we do it for.

“I said to our guys in the first team meeting that I hope they bring everyone, I hope they bring all the big guns, which probably is a little bit of a shock, really, in terms of people probably say 'I'd be wanting to rest a few' but we've worked so hard to get here and when you have competitions like this, you want to see them play everyone.

“I think that's the big thing, whether I'll be saying that after 60 minutes or not depends on how we apply ourselves. But I certainly hope that they bring as many of the big names as possible.”