Durham defender Sarah Robson was absolutely delighted to help her side to record a 3-1 penalty shootout victory over Manchester United in the FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup at Maiden Castle last night.
The two sides played out a 2-2 draw in normal time with Durham levelling matters on two occasions, scoring goals at the end of each half. The Wildcats extended their unbeaten run in 90 minutes against Manchester United on home soil to three matches with the result.
Robson netted Durham’s second goal, forcing the penalty shootout. The goal came at a time in the game when Durham were down to 10 players with Saoirse Noonan having gone off injured and with no permitted substitutions remaining.
When speaking in the post-match press conference, Robson admitted that she was thrilled with the performance.
“It was incredible, we were down and out because we were down to 10-men,” Robson said. “They were dominant in the game, they were unbelievable and you can see why they are top of the Super League at the minute. To hold on, it just shows that in football, if you stay in the game, anything can happen. It was just amazing to get the goal at the end and draw the game.”
Durham defeated Manchester United at their old New Ferens Park ground in 2018/2019 before holding The Red Devils to a 2-2 draw in normal time on home soil in last season’s FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup. Robson said that the team had belief that they could pull off an upset in their latest fixture against Manchester United.
She said “We knew that it was going to be hard but we’ve played them before and we are one of their bogey teams. They’ve never really beaten us here in four or five years, we’ve got that little bit of pride about us when we do play them and that showed today.”
Durham defeated Sheffield United on penalties in their first FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup group match and Robson said that the team went into their latest shootout against Manchester United with confidence.
“We’ve just got a bit of confidence,” Robson said. “We won our first penalty shootout a couple of weeks ago and from that, we’ve got a bit of belief.
“At the end of the day, we’ve just got no pressure on us going into that penalty shootout, Man U should beat us every day of the week but we did well.”
Durham return to action on Sunday when Crystal Palace are the visitors to Maiden Castle.
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