Interview

‘We weren’t our normal way... but controlled it’

Montemurro

Three seasons with Joe Montemurro, three Continental League Cup finals.

Vivianne Miedema and Danielle van de Donk were the names on the scoresheet as we dug deep to secure a 2-1 victory over Manchester City on Wednesday night, but our head coach is a perfectionist and believes there’s still plenty of room for improvement. 

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

on reaching his third Conti Cup final...

It’s an important tournament that we respect, and we like being part of it. It’s a great privilege to represent this club in three Conti Cup finals, the only one we missed out on last season was the FA Cup final last year. Every tournament that we’re in, we respect it and we always put out the best team possible to go into the next stage.

on how we handled the occasion... 

We weren’t good, we weren’t our normal way with the ball. We had to contain a little bit and we probably dropped off a little bit early, too early at times, but I think we controlled them. I don’t think it was a problem in regards to them really cutting us open but the penalty was the only time they got through, really, and then we were silly on the set piece where we’re usually quite stable. In the end we had another couple of chances to finish the game off, especially with Viv going one on one and Beth going through a couple of times. In the end I can’t remember them having a couple of clear cut chances apart from the first half when Lia Walti’s back pass was cut out. 

on Man City’s chances…

That’s probably the only disappointing thing. A little but of sloppiness and stuff, but it’s cup football, there’s the emotion, there’s the do or die and we didn’t want it to got to extra time. Obviously, we wanted to conserve some energy for Sunday. 

on Bonner’s goal…

It’s an interesting one because we work a lot on set pieces, in the attack and defending phases. It was just one of those that I don’t know what happened I’ll have to review it a little bit better. We lost our way a little bit and that’s a little disappointing. 

on largely keeping City at bay...

We were really happy, especially in the first half. As I said, apart from Lia Walti’s back pass they really didn’t hurt us and we probably could have gone one more in. Then in the second half we opened them up and I thought we should have finished them off. It’s cup football and you don’t remember the result in some ways in terms of goals against and goals scored. You remember winning and going through to the next phase. We‘re in a cup final and I’m very pleased and proud of the goals. 

on having to do it all over again on Sunday...

We go again on Sunday, for a big game. Obviously, there’s still a lot to play in this league but a positive result on Sunday will just edge us closer and continue our run.