Canberra United's Laura Hughes backs Michelle Heyman to prevail against Sydney FC

"They haven't come up against Michelle Heyman," Hughes said.

The Canberra United striker has returned to the W-League in vintage form and leads the scoring charts with six goals after as many rounds.

The tally has brought her just one goal shy of levelling the W-League's all-time scoring record, which is held by Sam Kerr on 70 goals.

Monday's clash with the ladder-leading Sky Blues will be United's biggest test of the season, having won all four matches and kept three clean sheets.

"It's a tough one, Sydney has a lot of experience and depth in their backline," Hughes said.

"Hopefully we can build on the goals we've scored in the first half now and put more on the score-sheet. We need to make sure we're doing the right things at training, so we're nice and sharp up front."

Despite Sydney's dominance, United coach Vicki Linton isn't reading into the results because of the uneven schedule.

The Sky Blues have only played the Wanderers and Newcastle Jets after Sydney's Christmas outbreak of COVID-19 threw the fixture into disarray.

Both teams will enter the round-seven clash at Kogarah Oval confident from last week's victory, with the winning side to secure an outright lead on top of the W-League table.

"Sydney is interesting this year, particularly with the strangeness and lopsidedness of the fixtures. I don't look too closely at the ladder," Linton said.

"Their four games, to be fair, two have been against Western Sydney and the other two against Newcastle. They came off a bye last week, so it was interesting to watch them [on Monday].

"It's always hard for teams coming off a bye week, they're going to be better for that and see us as a challenge.

"They've got some consistency in that team with the same coach for many years, and also some quality players and experience.

"We're playing them in their territory, I think it's going to be a real challenge for us but one we're ready for."

Sydney boasts the likes of inaugural United captain Ellie Brush and midfielder Teresa Polias, who is the W-League's most capped player.

Hughes and Polias were named in this round's team of the week, with the former looking forward to the midfield challenge.

"It'll be a good test for me and our whole midfield, Grace [Maher] as well. I'm excited and hopefully we can control the midfield," Hughes said.

W-LEAGUE

Round seven - Sydney FC v Canberra United at Kogarah Oval, 4.35pm