After seeing us book a spot in the Continental Tyres Cup final via an extra-time win against Manchester City, Jonas Eidevall believes his side will benefit from winning in that fashion.
Stina Blackstenius netted the only goal of the game three minutes into the additional half an hour after the sides couldn’t be separated after normal time at Meadow Park, with some resolute defending from that point onwards setting us up for a chance at silverware.
Either West Ham United or Chelsea await in the final at Selhurst Park, and Jonas feels that the resilience shown to defend our lead in those final 27 minutes will stand us in good stead as the crucial games keep coming over the remainder of the campaign.
Speaking post-match, he chuckled: “I thought to myself: ‘why couldn’t we have scored that one just before, and we didn’t go to extra-time!’ But at the same time, you wouldn’t want that undone because those 27 minutes we played builds a lot of character and culture, and we can really show determination and grit as a team in those moments. If we can do that all the time, that’s something we can build on.
“Don’t forget, we played Sunday night and they played on Saturday lunchtime so we actually lost 36 hours of preparation for this game, so I’m really proud of the effort we had on the pitch here today.”
After overcoming Gareth Taylor’s team in cup action, we now head to Manchester on the weekend for a rematch in the Women’s Super League. Jonas doesn’t feel as though this victory will be too much of a factor as both teams continue their battle to claim as many domestic honours as possible.
“It’s a completely new match, and I don’t think either of the teams here cannot go under 100 per cent because then you don’t win,” he added. “Both teams wanted to win and play in the final so we had to be at our very best.
“It was a strong performance against a strong opponent. I thought it was a game decided by small margins and we worked really hard to get those margins on our side, but we have to be humble and say that City also did a lot of things really well.”
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