Chelsea FC Women’s Jess Carter has praised the team’s performance as the Blues put two past Arsenal to secure a place in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup final at Wembley in May.
Carter played the full 90 minutes as Emma Hayes’ side put in a superb second-half display to brush past the Gunners at a sold-out Meadow Park on Sunday afternoon.
Two terrific strikes from Guro Reiten and Ji So-Yun solidified our place in the final as Hayes’ team will be looking to retain the FA Cup trophy.
Speaking after the game, Carter said: ‘Everyone put in an amazing shift and we obviously had a game plan and I think we executed that quite well, we were defensively solid I felt.
‘It was an incredible performance. It was really, really good and it just shows the depth we’ve always had in our squad. We’ve always had great versatility throughout the squad and it doesn’t matter who goes in there, everyone seems to be able to do a great job and put in a good performance and contribute to getting the win and the clean sheet.
It took a while for the Blues to find our flow, while Arsenal performed well in the opening stages.
Carter added: ‘They exploited and got in behind at times in the first half, probably more times than we would have liked but as the game went on longer we just got stronger and got ourselves organised a bit quicker and a bit better.’
Our No.7 was full of praise for the goalscorers, adding: ‘We’ve had times in the season where we’ve not been as clinical but both the finishes were outstanding. Guro and Ji finish like that on a regular basis so for us at Chelsea it’s nothing new but, yeah, it was world class from both of them.’
The Blues will face Manchester City in the final, a repeat of this year’s Continental Tyres League Cup final. City ran out winners at the Cherry Red Records Stadium last month.
‘For me, the Continental Cup final has been and gone. Now it’s just focusing on the final and we’ll do our best to come away with the trophy. We’re well aware of the strengths Man City have but I think we can beat them as long as we put in the right performance.’
The Blues are back in Barclays FA Women’s Super League action this Sunday as Hayes’ side travel to Tottenham Hotspur, kicking off at 2.30pm.
We are back at Kingsmeadow on Thursday 28 April when we host Spurs in the reverse fixture, kicking off at 7.45pm. To purchase tickets to our clash with Spurs, click here.