Montemurro on the win, Foord, Gut and Williams

Joe Montemurro was left delighted as we returned to winning ways in the Women’s Super League with a 3-0 victory over Birmingham City on Sunday. 

From free-flowing football and a stunner from Jill Roord, to a debut for Lydia Williams and promising display from Malin Gut, our performance had it all. 

We spoke to Montemurro after the final whistle - and this is what he said: 

on tactical tweaks made at the break…

They are very compact and we couldn’t play in between. What we did notice was that when we went out wide their full backs or wide players were being exposed, their central players weren’t coming with them. We just felt one of our full backs or a 10 could get into that space a little bit more and that was one of the main reasons we brought on Lisa Evans to jump into that space between their full back and centre back and it was good from that perspective.

on the impact of Caitlin Foord since her arrival…

I’ll leave it to you guys (journalists) to assess who the best imports are, but I think it’s a good word that you used to describe Caitlin - ‘impact.’ She’s forceful with the ball, she’s forceful running in behind and she’s forceful when she has to protect the ball. She’s a different type of attacker and wide player to some of the others we have. We’re very lucky to have her and she’s a great player and Caitlin is showing why we brought her over.

on the character the team showed in the first half…

I said in the huddle at full-time that it was a very good character test for us, because we had a lot of very, very good opportunities in the first half but you’ve got to put the ball in the back of the net. But we continued playing our way and continued finding the gaps. I actually felt that the first two goals were more difficult chances than some of the ones we didn’t score. These games are really important for the whole package of the year and what we’re trying to achieve.

on Lydia Williams and what she brings to the team…

Lyds is known for her commanding and vocal ways! It’s a big asset for us. A team that defends very deep is going to threaten you on the break because we’ve got a lot of the ball, that means you have to manage what happens without the ball and that’s where Lyds is perfect. We made sure that any chance they had to go forward was cut out and controlled.

on Malin Gut..

Malin is a player that we believe is going to be something special and in each game she is growing in belief in her ways and the game we play. Especially today when you play a very deep defence and they leave one upfront. Your centre backs can get pulled out and they need protection in front of them and she did that very, very well today.