Kerr - The girls were magnificent

Shelley Kerr and Steph Houghton spoke to the media after Arsenal Ladies secured their 12th FA Women's Cup title with a 3-0 victory against Bristol Academy at Keepmoat Stadium.

on the game...
SK: I thought the girls were absolutely magnificent today. In terms of winning the 39th trophy, I think it's so important for this Club to continue to win. I'm extremely delighted for all the girls and everyone connected with the Club.

on a fast start…
SK: Yeah we did [start well]. That was in our gameplan. Since we've started this season, we've struggled a wee bit to get an early goal so I thought it was a big turning point getting one today. It made us settle as a team and I thought we were really calm and composed on the ball. It wasn't a bad header as well!

on silencing critics after losing to Liverpool…
SK: I think that it's easy to misinterpret that. Anyone that was at the game would have seen that there wasn't four goals in the game. It was 10 minutes of madness on our part. This was our 13th game this year and 11 of those games were cup ties. We've only played two league games and already people were writing us off. I think you have to accept that when you're at a Club with the stature that Arsenal have. People have expectations within the Club and away from the Club. We know that and we just have to concentrate on what we do well and that's to play football. You saw that today.

on how the players felt after the Liverpool game…
SH: At a Club like Arsenal, you're not used to losing and as Shelley said, the scoreline didn't really reflect the game but as players we knew that we needed to do that. I think over the last few games we've done that bit by bit. We really wanted to win the FA Cup and it was really disappointing to get knocked out in the semi-finals last year. To come here today and put on the performance that we have done is a credit to all the girls and the coaching staff.

on if it was a more comfortable win than it might have been…
SK: You have to give them [Bristol Academy] credit. They've had a really good start to the season and, even though we were dominant and thoroughly deserved to win, at times they caused us some problems. All the teams are catching up and that makes it competitive. If you're a player or a coach that's what you want to be involved in.

on Jordan Nobbs' performance…
SK: I think she's a class act. I never like singling out individuals but she's getting stronger and stronger all the time. I saw Jordan play when she was about 14 or 15 years old and she's just grown and developed ever since. I think the future is bright for her.

on Nobbs scoring a header…
SH: Yeah, smallest person on the pitch and she scores a header! It's not bad is it!
SK: We spoke about getting in at the back post at half-time. I don't know if she did that subconsciously or not but we did speak about that. Sometimes the deliveries were going into the back area and we had no one there. She's a bright, intelligent player. For a young player, she's very intelligent as a footballer.

on kicking on…
SK: We really want to kick on in the league. That's a big one for us. The cups are a bonus and this is a fantastic start for us but we really want to start to do well in the league. I'm already switching on to Thursday now because I think it's a massive game for the Club. As a coach, you can never really enjoy a win, or only for a couple of minutes. Then you have to think about what's next so we need to make sure that the players recover well and are ready to go again on Thursday. That's a massive game for us.

on a difficult pitch…
SH: The pitch was quite hard and a bit sandy. We knew we might have to take an extra touch but we still managed to play the football that we did and that just shows how much talent we've got in the squad and how much trust we've got in each other's abilities to keep playing football and keep playing the right way.