Interview

Montemurro - We will continue to grow in character

Joe Montemurro

The future is looking bright for our women’s team.

Since losing the opening game of 2018, Joe Montemurro’s side have gone on a seven-match unbeaten streak, a run which has included six wins and six consecutive clean sheets.

 

During that time, we have also booked our place in the FA WSL Continental Cup final and the last eight of the SSE Women’s FA Cup, and Montemurro is delighted that our hard work behind the scenes is paying dividends on the pitch.

 

“The organisation has been good, the work we’ve been doing off the ball has been very, very good and, if we can use that as a base and a framework to score one goal more than the other team, then it’s a good base to work with,” he told Arsenal.com.

 

“We’ve obviously got international duty now which means a lot of our players are going away, but we need to make sure that they come back in good stead. We’ll keep the other players that we still have here ticking over and keep growing in terms of character.

 

“Beth Mead, for example, is working really hard to continue growing and she is now really becoming the player that we all know she can be. She’s undergone a lot of improvement and I wish her all the best.

 

“It’s also been fantastic to see Kim Little return. We have to get her back to her best smartly. She could probably have played for a bit longer against Everton but no, we said it would be 45 minutes and that’s it. It was an opportunity for Lauren James to come on and show she has the character to play for this club.

 

“Lauren’s a good girl and she’s got an abundance of talent. The more that she plays and the more that she builds her understanding of how we want to play, the more she will develop.”