‘It was a gritty display… one that we needed’

Despite a tough start to the season, two wins in two games has seen us rise to third in the Women’s Super League - and Heather O’Reilly insists that there’s still more to come.

Following our 3-0 win against Sunderland at Meadow Park, here is what the United States international told Arsenal.com:

on the performance…

I think it was a really gritty performance, which was one that we needed. I think we had a lot of chances in the first half, so of course you could start having doubts setting in that it may not be our day, but we fought that feeling, we fought that negativity and we came out of the locker room feeling optimistic, believing in each other and our chances and we were able to put some home. I think Jordan Nobbs had an excellent game too, to put in two world class set-pieces, one which she scored on and one which she delivered to Louise Quinn, so that was excellent and a fantastic finish from Vivianne Miedema as well. I think it was a really good team effort and I think everybody did their job well, which is what you’re looking for in 90 minutes.

on taking time to break them down…

We knew that would be the case against Sunderland, we had an unfortunate feeling of drawing with them in the Spring Series and it’s a game that we look back on and we wonder if we were able to get one against them we could have come away with the Spring Series title, so I think that we held on to that memory and wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen again today. They have a good tough defensive line and their team knows sort of how to limit chances and I think that Rachel Laws made some really fantastic saves in goal, who we are familiar with. She was able to get some fingertips onto Beth Mead’s early chances and she had a great game, so we’re just happy that we continued to knock on the door and everybody has wonderful skillsets on this team and we need to count bringing the best out of each other.

on building confidence…

I would say that at this point we feel very up and down about our start to the season. I think obviously we know, looking around at each other, the talent level and the quality that we have on this team and I think it comes down to bringing the best out of each other and making each other’s best qualities shine. I would say that we are eager to put together our best performance, because I don’t think that we’ve seen it yet, I don’t think we’ve shown our fans that yet, so in that way I think that we’re very optimistic that we have even more in us.