Aston Villa head coach Carla Ward praised her side’s performance, despite exiting this season’s Vitality Women’s FA Cup on Saturday following a 3-1 fourth round defeat to holders Chelsea at The Banks’s Stadium.
Guro Reiten netted a brace while Pernille Harder was also on target for Chelsea as they eased beyond The Villans to secure their place in the fifth round.
Speaking to FAWSL Full-Time after the match, Aston Villa boss Ward said that she was pleased with her side’s performance.
“I thought we were excellent, I thought we stayed in the game for 90 minutes and we deserved the goal at the end,” she said.
“I think we caused them a lot of problems today. There’s some world class players out there, they are one of the best teams in Europe and we’ve just gone toe-to-toe for 90 minutes, so it’s disappointing but we’ve come across a very good team today.”
The game was certainly not without controversy. Chelsea’s second goal in particular was a topic of much debate after Ruesha Littlejohn was deemed to have brought down Reiten in the penalty area, a decision that Ward was determined to highlight.
The Villa boss said “I’ll be completely honest, I think my players deserve better, better officiating, because the second goal is not a penalty, we’ve seen it, they’ve seen it, everyone’s seen it, it’s not a penalty.
“Quite honestly I’m getting sick to death every week of putting in these complaints and getting simply an apology E-mail, it’s getting a bit boring.”
Nevertheless, Chelsea’s win was ultimately comfortable with Ward emphasising the visitors’ clinical edge as a major factor in the result.
She said “Look they are clinical, you can’t give them moments. In the first half, the only one time we came out of our shape they cut us apart and got a goal.
‘That’s the difference with the top teams, you can’t deny they are an unbelievable team so you can’t give them those moments.”
The fixture marked a debut for January signing Jill Scott and her contributions were heavily praised by Ward.
“[Jill was] absolutely outstanding today,” Ward said. “She brings calm and a lot of quality on the ball, she breaks up play, she links play. I thought for 90 minutes she was actually outstanding, she brought a lot both on and off the pitch, her leadership and experience were second to none.”
Scott was joined by fellow debutant Rachel Corsie in the second half and the Scotland skipper managed to slot seamlessly into the Villans’ back line. As with Scott, Corsie produced a performance that delighted her manager with Ward noting “She’s calm, she’s composed, she can step in and break up the play and she can build well so she’ll be massive.
“She’s another leader, another experienced player and I think you saw today in our play, we’ve got leaders out there now, we’ve got experience out there and I thought we were brilliant.”
Aston Villa are back in action on Sunday when West Ham United are the visitors to The Banks’s Stadium.
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