Sunday’s goalscorer on taking her chance and captaining the side…
It was in the build-up to Sunday’s Women's Super League outing at West Ham United that Emma Hayes, when acknowledging similarities between two of her midfielders, Erin Cuthbert and Sjoeke Nusken, added that the latter carried the greater goal threat. Nusken had just scored twice in each of the previous two games.
Cuthbert had her chance to give a response on the pitch in east London at the weekend and she answered her manager in exactly the way Hayes would have wished – lashing in an outstanding shot to add to Aggie Beever-Jones’s opener in a 2-0 win.
Now, at the media conference ahead Chelsea Women’s Champions League match against Ajax, the Scotland international has been able to react to what Hayes said with her own words.
‘Emma knows how to get at me, that is for sure, over the course of the time working with her,’ Cuthbert admitted.
‘She knows how to provoke me and find a little bit of an animal inside me, and she knows that as well. She knows how to wind me up.
‘But Sjoeke has been in brilliant form as well and we've needed her at this time in the season. Maybe I’m doing a bit more defensive work than she is but I think everyone's going to have their moment this season.
‘On Sunday it was mine and Aggie’s moment, the week before it was Sjoeke’s and we need everyone to contribute over this period when we have so many games. You have to be ready when that moment comes.’
An added responsibility for Cuthbert of late has been as one of the players sharing the captain’s armband while Millie Bright has been out. The 25-year-old was the skipper in the away leg against Ajax.
‘It is taking more responsibility,’ Cuthbert acknowledged. ‘Everyone looks to you and your behaviours on the pitch and I have to be super-conscious of what I'm doing, how I'm perceived, when maybe I haven't really thought of that before.
‘I need to take a bit more of a role off the pitch as well than I previously have. You have to deal with conversations, you have to do press conferences, so it's all kind of new. I'm learning on the job and I'm really enjoying it.’